Conscience and Community

"Lowell Bennion, Sterling McMurrin, and Obert Tanner were friends and colleagues whose lives often intertwined. Professors at the University of Utah, these three scholars collaborated in addressing issues and events of their time; each influenced the thought and culture of Mormonism, helping to institute a new period of intellectual life and social activism. In Conscience and Community multiple scholars, family members, and others look at the private and public aspects of three lives and examine the roles they played in shaping their communities inside and out of their university and church. Lowell Bennion was founding director of the LDS Institute of Religion and professor of sociology at the University of Utah. He established multiple community service entities. Sterling McMurrin was a distinguished professor of philosophy and history, a graduate school dean, and former commissioner of education under JFK. He dismissed dogma and doctrine as barriers to a search for moral and spiritual understanding. Obert Tanner, also of the university's Philosophy Department, excelled in teaching and in business and became especially well known for philanthropy. The lives and work of these three men reveal the tensions between faith and reason, conscience and obedience. Their stories speak to us today because their concerns remain our concerns: racial justice, women's equality, gay rights, and the meaning of integrity and conscience"--Provided by publisher.