How can scholars of religion explain religious faith without explaining it away? Over the centuries many scholars have come to discuss religion as a purely human phenomenon, leaving no room for “special beings” like God, Jesus Christ, angels, or departed loved ones. Robert Orsi confronts such scholarship in his new book History and Presence, inviting scholars to take the experiences of religious believers more seriously.
But it’s a risky proposal. “Scholarship entails risk,” Orsi explains, “for the person whose world has been entered by the scholar, but for the scholar, too, whose own uncertainties ought to be on the line in the encounter.”
Orsi recently visited the Maxwell Institute to talk about how scholars should take special presences more seriously. We talk about it in this special 80th episode of the Maxwell Institute Podcast.
About the Guest
Robert Orsi is the Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies at Northwestern University. He has also taught at Fordham University, Indiana University, and Harvard Divinity School. He is former president of the American Academy of Religion. He studies American Catholicism and also writes on theory and method for the study of religion. His latest book History and Presence is an ambitious intervention into the field of religious studies.
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George Handley is the associate dean in Brigham Young University’s College of Humanities. He is the author of several books, including 
A professor of English at Yale University, John Rogers is the author of Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry, and Politics in the Age of Milton, a book awarded prizes by the Milton Society of America and the Modern Language Association. He is also author of several articles on Renaissance (mainly seventeenth-century) English literature and religious culture. His current projects include a book on the reading of the seventeenth-century poem Paradise Lost in the spiritual hothouse of nineteenth-century America, tentatively titled Latter-day Milton: Paradise Lost and the Creation of America’s God. 
Latter-day Saint historians have long demonstrated that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not established all at once, but that it has unfolded—line upon line, precept upon precept, to borrow a biblical phrase. Ideas about priesthood in Mormonism, for example, have developed in fascinating ways. In a new book from Oxford University Press, called 
Jonathan Stapley is an award-winning historian and scientist. An active participant in the field of Mormon studies, he is also the Chief Technology Officer for a bio-renewables company. His new book is called The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Ritual (Oxford University Press).
The Reverend Billy Graham rose to international prominence in the 1940s preaching an evangelical Christian gospel. Hailing from North Carolina, the charismatic preacher filled stadiums, counseled American presidents, and encouraged millions of people around the world to seek personal transformation by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Grant Wacker is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor emeritus of Christian History at Duke University. He is author of the book America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation. In 2017 Wacker presented at the Maxwell Institute’s Reformation conference, “
Adam Miller wrote Letters to a Young Mormon for thoughtful people yearning for a more thoughtful faith. It’s a little book, but it packs a powerful punch. In this episode, Miller is talks about the new second expanded edition, which the Maxwell Institute recently published in partnership with Deseret Book. We also talk about the perils of Mormon quasi-celebrity, bad book reviews, apologetics, his future projects, and other things.
Adam S. Miller is a professor of philosophy at Collin College in McKinney, Texas. He and his wife, Gwen, have three children. He is the author of many books, including 
The Book of Mormon warns against mistaking intelligence for wisdom, but adds a crucial caveat: “to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God” (
Richard Lyman Bushman is Gouverneur Morris Professor of History Emeritus at Columbia University and author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. He occupied the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California from 2008 to 2011. Before joining the faculty at Columbia University, Bushman received his BA and PhD degrees from Harvard University and taught at Brigham Young University, Brown University, Boston University, Harvard University (as a visiting professor), and the University of Delaware.
Latter-day Saint scholar Terryl L. Givens is back with us again. Dr. Givens spent the summer here at the Institute as a Neal A. Maxwell fellow. It was a real treat to have Terryl here in the building, and he sat down with MIPodcast host Blair Hodges to talk about the second and final book in his “Foundations of Mormon Thought” series from Oxford University Press. The book is called 
Terryl L. Givens holds the Jabez A. Bostwick Chair of English at the University of Richmond. He was a 2017 Neal A. Maxwell Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship where he co-directed the Summer Seminar on Mormon Culture. Terryl is one of the most prolific authors of books on Mormonism, including People of Paradox, By the Hand of Mormon, Wrestling the Angel, and Feeding the Flock: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Church and Praxis. Together with his wife Fiona he’s also written a number of books for LDS audiences including The God Who Weeps, The Crucible of Doubt, and their latest, The Christ Who Heals. He’s currently working on a biography of Mormon intellectual Eugene England.
If you’re familiar with African American religious history, you know that black women outnumber black men in the church. There are a lot of theories about why, too. Author Zora Neale Hurston, for example, said that black women were “the mules of the world,” and that the church gave them a place to lay their burdens down. But what if there’s something more to it than that? What if women go to church for empowerment? To wield power in sometimes subversive but spiritual ways? Subversive, because in many black denominations only men can be ordained to the clergy, but women have found ways to lead nevertheless.
Anthea Butler is graduate chair and associate professor of Religious Studies and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Butler’s research and writing spans religion and politics, religion and gender, African American religion, sexuality, media, religion, and popular culture. She has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets. She is the author of 
When the Qur’an was revealed to the prophet Muhammad, it arrived in the language of his place and time—Arabic. To this day, for virtually all Muslims whether Arab or not, the Qur’an only truly exists in Arabic. You can read an English translation, there are many to choose from, but the Qur’an is said to defy translation.
Bruce B. Lawrence is the Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Professor Emeritus of Religion at Duke University. His many books include Who Is Allah?; and Shattering the Myth: Islam Beyond Violence. He is the author of The Koran in English: A Biography, part of Princeton University Press’s Lives of Great Religious Books series.
