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I'm going to a free public lecture by Roger D. Launius on Mormonism. The title is Mormonism's Promised Land: Zion, America and the Quest for a Perfect Place. He's an independent scholar who's written four books on the subject. Has anyone heard of him before? I'm looking up information about him right now on the Web so I can write this up for my journalism class, but I was hoping for more insight. I thought I might call up the local LDS organization on campus and talk to them about the guy, too.
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Haven't heard of him yet. But there are kind of three competing concepts of Zion.
1) Independence, MO was the originally revealed site of Zion.
2) A lot of Utahns get defensive about 1) and say Utah is the promised land.
3) A progressive definition is "The pure in heart", so you can carry a little bit o' Zion with you every where you go if your attitude is right. "No poor among you" is another important definition.
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The name sparked a faint memory so I did a search and can tell you that Launius...
1. is an active member of the Mormon History Assoc., an organization whose members range the gamut from Mormon semi-apologists to those critical of *some* current LDS practices/leaders to those who could care less about modern day Mormonism but are interested in its roots. Its members do good scholarly work, but are not all academics. In other words there is room for 'amateur' historians -- i.e. those with some academic training but not necessarily with tenured academic positions. Launius has won several awards from the MHA. So what I'm saying is he has solid credentials in the Mormon academic community.
2. It's important to recognize that when used in academic circles the term Mormon doesn't not refer solely to members of the LDS Church. It would seem that most of Launius' work is on Mormon history of the Nauvoo period (i.e. before Joseph Smith was murdered and the trek West) and on the RLDS -- the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The RLDS church was formed around the idea that the Mormon leadership should be hereditary and confined to the Smith family. While there are many similarities to the LDS Church, there are also fundamental differences in doctrine and practice -- differences that have grown over the intervening 150+ years. Thus, what Launius speaks about will not only be filtered through his own critical lens, but also be told from a more RLDS point of view. Which is a valid pov -- just not one that would be the exact same as that of an LDS scholar. I don't know if Launius is affiliated with the RLDS or not -- I'm just saying that since that is the thread of history that he has studied, his presentation may be of more relevance to the RLDS branch.
3. Launius also has what has to be one of the coolest jobs ever -- he is chief historian for NASA.
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Oh yeah, and I wouldn't use the word "competing." More like there are three different common usages of the word -- each of which denotes a different but related meaning/landscape.
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