The Maxwell Institute is excited to announce Brigham Young University professor of philosophy James E. Faulconer has been named a senior research fellow. Dr. Faulconer transfers to the Institute from his former position as Resident Senior Research Fellow at Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institution.

A longtime friend if the Institute, Dr. Faulconer is author of our “Scriptures Made Harder” series (2013–2015) and other books such as Scripture Study: Tools and Suggestions (1999), Faith, Philosophy, and Scripture (2010), and The Life of Holiness: Notes and Reflections on Romans 1, 5–8 (2012).

Paul Edwards, director of the Wheatley Institution, thanked Faulconer for his past contributions. “Jim’s expansive intellect and fresh insight have contributed enormously to our success and growth,” Edwards said. “We are grateful that he will continue with us as a Wheatley Fellow and that he will now be able to devote his full capacity to scholarship about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with the Maxwell Institute as well.”

In welcoming Dr. Faulconer, the Institute’s associate director Philip Barlow said, “Jim is among the most thoughtful and genial Latter-day Saint philosophers ever to have turned their gaze toward religion as a formal subject.  His arrival at the Maxwell Institute brings an infusion of experience, depth, devotion, and wisdom.”

Dr. Faulconer said he plans to spend his first few months at the Institute completing his brief theological introduction to the book of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon, and after that, completing a book on scriptural theology.