Feeding the Flock

Since European thinkers began to conceive of religion as a category of human behavior that could be defined, classified, and analyzed, taxonomy has figured high on the list of priorities. Comparative religionists began with the most general categories, such as monotheist or polytheist, then worked their way down to increasingly smaller units of organization. For example, once “Christianity” was identified as monotheism, it was then subdivided into Catholic and Protestant branches and then divided again, and again. Scholars determine how religions relate to each other in this complex schema by examining and comparing theology, soteriology, theodicy, scripture, cosmology, mythology, ritual practice, and a host of other dimensions that, collectively, are sometimes known as “ecclesiology.” On the surface, Givens’s book appears almost encyclopedic rather than narrative, organized as it is around categorical discussions of such things as sacramental theology, priesthood, salvific and non-salvific ritual practice, ecclesiastical structure, and boundary maintenance methods. It pretends to be neither history nor sociology, although it does draw on those disciplines to describe the various facets of Mormon ecclesiology. It is a book about how the LDS Church works. At that level, the book succeeds admirably. One potential criticism of the book is that it makes no argument, there really is no thesis or historiographical point being made, and it therefore is helpful but not particularly dynamic or important. But that would be a grave mistake.

Art · Ecclesiology · Epistemology · Historiography · Islam · Literature · Monotheism · Narrative · Narrativity · Schema (genetic algorithms) · Soteriology · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Mormonism, Religion, and History · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices