Since Blake made his appeal for me to come to the SMPT conference I really should mention the conference information. I've been so busy the last few months I've been falling down announcing these sorts of things. It will be March 17-18 at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. Once again I'll not be presenting. Although I am actually working on a paper for next year. I've also heard that the papers from the 1st conference should be published soon. My fingers are crossed as I've been eagerly awaiting future copies of both Element, the SMPT journal and these publications.
I will try to be at the conference. But as I mentioned to Blake I can make no promises. It's been an amazingly busy year with my existing company taking up a lot of time, with starting a new business, and then having a very pregnant wife and toddler to take care of as well.
I should add a bit, since not everyone is probably familiar with SMPT. It stands for the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology. It is attempting to spread the word of various ideas and arguments regarding Mormon theology made by Mormons. There have been many people working through ideas. Unfortunately in the past there has been precious little communication of ideas. Sunstone and Dialog have had only a very small number of philosophically related papers. And most of those, by the very nature of the journals, tend to be written more for non-philosophers. Blake Ostler's books on Mormon theology are helping that somewhat. Both by engaging with traditional theology as well as rigorously promoting his own particular vision of Mormon theology. There have also of late been other publications, including Dialog and Sunstone taking a more active approach towards philosophy. However there actually is a fair bit more variety of views out there. I hope those will be communicated. It's all still very much at the beginning stages. But I do think this is an exciting time in many ways.
I don't know if this is supposed to be priveledged information, but I don't think so. Here's the preliminary list of the conference:
Proposed Conference Program 3
Friday March 17
9am Welcome Michael Popich (including paper) and Richard Sherlock
10 am Jennifer Lane “Embodied Knowledge of God”
11 am Brian Birch, “ Reformed Epistemology, Mormonism and the Question of Fideism”
LUNCH
1 pm. Adam Miller “Atonement and Testimony”
2 pm Ben Huff “Unity in Action and Unity in God”
3-3:30 Break
3:30-5:00 - Dan and Blake
5:00-7:00 - Dinner
7:00-8:00 - Davis
8:15- 9:15- Roundtable Davis, Dan, and Blake
Saturday March 18
9 am Business Meeting
10 am James McLachlan “ Boehme, Buddha, and Brigham “
11 am Charlotte Haan “Kierkegaard’s Book of Adler: A case for Joseph Smith’s Authority”
LUNCH
1 pm Richard Sherlock, “Mormonism and Intelligent Design”
2 pm Kevin Winters, “A Critique of the “New Mormon Materialism”
3—3:30 Break
3:30- 4: 30 Dennis Potter, “ A God Without God’s Eye Point of View”
4:30—5:15pm Board meeting
Who is the "Dan" that is having the forum with Blake?
I think its Daniel Petersen.
Actually, I think it is Dan Wotherspoon.
What's the topic?
It's Dan the Man Peterson of FARMS fame.
The topic is the trinity in traditional and LDS thought -- with kickers about deification and salvation.
Hmm. That's almost enough to make me come. Promise me someone raises the "it's not the Trinity, its creation ex nihilo" (grin)
Clark: Count on it.
Alright, it's official. I'll be there Friday. (Snowboarding with my brother Russ on Thurs and Sat made trip too tempting to pass up)
Your not going to go to the Satuday Session?
Hehe... Well does Snowbird count as a session? No, just Friday for me this year. Any chance you can make any part of that Friday? I enjoyed lunch with you and Blake last year.
I'll definitely be there for both days. Haven't missed a year yet.
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and Theology
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