The Truth, the Way, the Life: an Elementary Treaties on Theology

Brief Description: Less than ten years before his death in 1933, B. H. Roberts, one of the most influential Mormon writers of the twentieth century, began work on "the most important book that I have yet contributed to the [LDS] Church." A prolific and respected Mormon apologist, Roberts wanted to consolidate his theological thought into a unified whole and to reconcile science with scripture. His final manuscript, "The Truth, the Way, the Life," synthesized doctrine into three sections: the truth about the world and revelation, the way of salvation, and Jesus' life in shaping Christian character. He submitted his completed work to the LDS First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, which, after a series of heated meetings, rejected it. Roberts's views on evolution, the age of the earth, the pre-earth existence, and the eternal progression of God were deemed too controversial, so his "masterwork" went unpublished. With the support of the Roberts family, editor Stan Larson has corrected this sixty-year omission from the corpus of Mormon theology. According to Leonard J. Arrington, former LDS Church Historian, "B. H. Roberts considered 'The Truth, The Way, The Life' to be the most important work he had written. While people may differ with him on that judgement, this ambitious treatise . . . shows a great mind grappling with great issues."Biographical Note: Stan Larson is the curator for the Utah History, Philosophy, and Religion Archives at the Marriott Library, University of Utah. He is the author of Quest for the Gold Plates; co-author of Unitarianism in Utah; and editor of A Ministry of Meetings: The Apostolic Diaries of Rudger Clawson, Prisoner for Polygamy: The Memoirs and Letters of Rudger Clawson, and Working the Divine Miracle: The Life of Apostle Henry D. Moyle." Through his own imprint, Freethinker Press, he has edited and published Ray R. Channing's My Continuing Quest and Marvin and Julia Bertoch's Modern Echoes from Ancient Hills. Leonard J. Arrington was the LDS Church Historian and Lemuel H. Redd Professor of Western History at Brigham Young University. He wrote the award-winning Brigham Young: American Moses and the classic Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, and co-authored such works as The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints, Rescue of the 1856 Handcart Companies, and Saints Without Halos: The Human Side of Mormon History. He contributed to Faithful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History, The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past, and Personal Voices: A Celebration of Dialogue. Leonard died in 1999. Sterling M. McMurrin was Academic Vice President and dean of the graduate school at the University of Utah, a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University and the Union Theological Seminary, and a Ford Fellow in philosophy at Princeton. In addition to being U. S. Commissioner of Education (see above), he served as US Envoy to Iran. He was the author of "Education and Freedom; Religion, Reason and Truth; and co-author of Contemporary Philosophy"; "A History of Philosophy"; "Matters of Conscience;"and "Toward Understanding the New Testament." He contributed to" The Autobiography of B. H. Roberts" and "Memories and Reflections."Thom D. Roberts is a lawyer with the Utah State Attorney General's Office and a great-grandson of Brigham H. Roberts. Erich Robert Paul was a professor at Dickson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, until his death in 1994. He authored "The Milky Way Galaxy and Statistical Cosmology, 1890-1924" and "Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology."

Contributor Bio:  Roberts, B H Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 - June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism. When he was twenty-four, Smith published the Book of Mormon; and by the time of his death fourteen years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and had founded a religion and a religious culture that continues to the present. Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont, but by 1817, he had moved with his family to western New York, a site of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening. According to Smith, he experienced a series of visions, including one in which he saw "two personages" (presumably God the Father and Jesus Christ) and others in which an angel directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published what he said was an English translation of these plates, the Book of Mormon. The same year he organized the Church of Christ, calling it a restoration of the early Christian church. Members of the church were later called "Latter Day Saints," or "Mormons." In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communalistic American Zion. After Smith was imprisoned in Carthage, Illinois, he was killed when a mob stormed the jailhouse. Smith published many revelations and other texts that his followers regard as scripture. His teachings include unique views about the nature of God, cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious collectivism. His followers regard him as a prophet comparable to Moses and Elijah, and he is considered the founder of several religious denominations, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ. Brigham Henry Roberts (March 13, 1857 - September 27, 1933) was a Mormon leader, historian, and politician who published a six-volume history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and was denied a seat as a member of United States Congress because of his practice of plural marriage. Contributor Bio:  Larson, Stan Larson, University of Birmingham, England, is the Western Americana curator for the Marriott Library, University of Utah. Contributor Bio:  McMurrin, Sterling M STERLING M. MCMURRIN was the first person to be designated a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah and he was the first recipient of the university's Rosenblatt Prize. His many publications include Religion, Reason, and Truth: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Religion. Contributor Bio:  Paul, Erich Robert Paul, professor at Dickson College until his death. Contributor Bio:  Roberts, Thom D Roberts, a great-grandson of B. H. Roberts, is a lawyer with the Utah State Attorney General's Office. Contributor Bio:  Arrington, Leonard J Arrington, former director, Joseph Fielding Smith institute for Church History, BYU.