This post continues a typology of Community of Christ historians currently working in the field. Continuing with the Biblical theme, this post considers historians running in different directions—the Jonahs running away from the tradition and the Pauls who have had their road to Damascus experience and changed allegiances. (more…)

Historian of religions Jonathan Z. Smith once quipped that “a comparison is a disciplined exaggeration in the service of knowledge” (Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity, p. 52). With this caveat in mind for what the comparative enterprise entails, at the invitation of the JI permabloggers, I’ve constructed a short typological overview of Community of Christ historians currently in the field. My schema is a bit artificial (there aren’t that many historians to classify in the first place), but I’ve done so simply to serve “a useful end.” This short essay looks at four categories of CofC historians and highlights one or two representatives from each type: the priests (historians who work for the church), the Isaiahs (the faithful iconoclasts), the Jonahs (the disillusioned historians), and the Pauls (the converts). (more…)