A Thoughtful Faith For the 21st Century
A new book from Faith Matters
In 1986, Philip Barlow curated and edited A Thoughtful Faith: Essays on Belief by Mormon Scholars. This collection of essays offered both space and nourishment for Saints in need of companionship on their journey of faith.
Today, we are pleased to announce that Faith Matters is publishing a follow-up volume, also edited by Philip Barlow: A Thoughtful Faith for the 21st Century.
A Thoughtful Faith for the 21st Century is a collection of personal essays by Latter-day Saint thinkers who give reason for the spiritual hope that is in them. Some are household names in educated circles; others are fresh voices. These are authors from diverse lands and various disciplines. They include historians and scientists, philosophers and psychologists, political scientists and poets.
AUTHOR LIST
GET A FREE ADVANCE COPY
Our ability to produce important books is directly funded by your generous donations. As a thank you, Friends of Faith Matters (donors and paid Substack subscribers) will receive a complimentary advance copy of this book. We can’t wait to hear what you think!
If you have any questions about your donation, or if you’d like to confirm that we have your correct address on file, please email us at info@faithmatters.org. We will mail advance copies out on April 14, so be sure to become a Friend of Faith Matters by then if you’d like to receive one!
You can also support the work of Faith Matters by sharing about this book with friends, family, and anyone else you think would be interested!
WHY THIS BOOK?
In the words of editor Philip Barlow,
Religion (“to bind together,” as by a ligament) is about shared beliefs and relationships as much as it is anything else. It is thus natural that churches work to systematize these beliefs and relationships into a disciplined and official whole, lest they become inefficient, incoherent, or self-contradictory. One might call this organizing process “correlation.”
Individual human experience, however, is not readily correlated. Thoughtful people come to their faith commitments variously, reflecting the diverse tenor of human probing and the rich variety of God’s response. The disciples you will hear from in this volume have given voice to the hope that is in them. Their voices are not homogenous. They are instead a genuine choir, singing with candor of struggle and grace.
Nonetheless, the collection of personal essays by Latter-day Saints that comprises A Thoughtful Faith for the 21st Century is held together by several strands. Among them is the proposition that a devout life of heart and spirit need not be blind. A second is that a life of the mind need not be spiritually arid. One cannot be too inspired, but neither can one think too well—for embodied intelligence and spirit is what we are. These twin elements are what tethers us to Divinity.
GET A FREE LOOK INSIDE
We are honored to be bringing this book to life and thrilled for it to finally be out in the world. We have published each essay on our Substack (some partially paywalled) so that you can get a taste for what’s inside and easily share the essays that most speak to you. You can start with Phil’s preface to the book here:
A Thoughtful Faith For the Twenty-First Century
A cherished friend of mine experienced in his thirties a “dark night of the soul”—at least in the phrase’s modern sense of a personal crisis. This bleak season lasted several years, during which the things he had most trusted in life no longer seemed dependable. Like me, he had studied religion formally in graduate school, which raised all manner of questions about his personal religion.