Item Detail
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30842
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1
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2
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English
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The Refiner's Fire: Rites of Scholarly Passage
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Journal of Mormon History
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2015
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41
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4
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Layton, Utah
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Mormon History Association
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188-198
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"It is hard to believe that John Brooke’s The Refiner’s Fire was published twenty years ago. Its publication coincided with my qualifying exams, and Martin Marty recommended it for my reading list as one of the most up-to-date scholarly treatments of Mormonism. I am glad that he did. Th e book increased my understanding of the origins of Mormon theology and of nineteenth-century American perfectionist theologies, in general. It also pushed me to see how a religious studies approach could be used effectively to explore American religious history, something that scholars were just beginning to do. At the time, scholars outside of Mormon studies, mostly non-Mormon, embraced the book, while those within Mormon studies, mostly Mormon, were more cautious and critical. From today’s perspective, read conservatively, the general conclusions of the book do not seem far-fetched: that what Brooke names as hermetic theology influenced Joseph Smith and is close associates as they introduced an optimistic, progressive plan of salvation to a membership hungry for answers to the big life questions. Th us, re-reading the book twenty years later gave me insight into how the overlapping fields of Mormon studies and American religious history have changed, how scholars in these fields are now in more direct conversation with each other, and how the interdisciplinary religious studies approach has been one
force in helping to spur these shifts. " [Author]