This post was written by Mike Hansen, a participant in the 2022 Latter-day Saint Theology Seminar.
By my count, the LDS Theology Seminar was roundly successful. As I have reflected on these successes, I think they must have stemmed from a few different factors.
The seminar was smartly designed. In the first week, our frequent and focusedinteraction harvested fruit from many quarters on a narrow passage of text eachday. It was inspiring to see members ofthe seminar bring their unique professional skillsets to the project and tostand up to their own disciplinary standards. This methodological exposure and cross pollination helped me to situatemy own approach, and it gave me a measure of confidence as I located my own ideasrelative to others. This particular kindof collaboration is rare in the academy, and I think it turned out to be highlyvaluable for my own work. In the secondweek, we each refined our own findings. Onthe heels of the densely interactive first week, I had plenty of beginnings topush to conclusions. With the finalconference looming, I had both motivation and focus to capture something worthwhilefrom my saturated seminar thoughts. Hence, the structure of the seminar supported a unique and fulfillingkind of product.
I think the seminar was headlined by our mutual respect forthe chosen text. Different approachesare good, but so is a unity of mind and aim. Here, the shortness of the text proved to be a virtue as close readingscan bring together a multitude of minds. There is a pleasant unity in the text, and our mutual respect for thattext provided the commonality sufficient to make progress together. A shared interest in the text can bridgelarge methodological gaps and it can accommodate wide ranging priorcommitments. So, I think that thiscommonplace is to credit for much of our progress.
I suspect that much of our success depended on our mutualrespect for one another in the seminar. Goodfeelings abounded, and exceptionally good manors prevailed among diverse academics. The support and interest of each member in mywork, and mine in theirs, encouraged my thinking and writing in a unique andmemorable way. I owe each participant mythanks for their help!
Finally, I’m confident that a great deal of our success belongssimply to the virtue of the text itself. It was powerful, though not surprising, to see just how fruitful,resilient, and generous the text can be under so many academic lenses. It invites further work, as it offers so muchmore that our lenses can show. Organizingthe seminar around such a virtuous input all but guarantees some virtue in ouroutputs. Of course, it also guaranteesthat my work will pale in comparison to the text it discusses. This doesn’t worry me—a good reader will onlybe inspired to search out the virtue of the original text for themself. Any light I manage to put on the text with mywriting, or to reflect from the text itself, will necessarily be outshined bythe light found in the text itself.