Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology annual meeting

2011 - Call For Papers

Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology Eighth Annual Meeting
April 7–9, 2011
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah
The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology invites papers on any aspect of Mormon belief, including its philosophical ramifications. We particularly encourage submissions on this year's theme.
Theme: "Serving God with Our Minds—The Place of Philosophy, Theology, and Scholarship in a Prophetic Church"
LDS scriptures teach us to serve God "with all [our] heart, might, mind, and strength" (D&C 4:2) and affirm that "to be learned is good" (2 Nephi 9:29). However, they also teach that God has "made foolish the wisdom of this world" (1 Corinthians 1:20), and that the gospel message will often "confound the wise and the learned" (Alma 32:23). What does it mean to serve God with our minds? Do philosophy and disciplined theological reflection have a place in a church with an authoritative magisterium that does not include philosophers, theologians, and their work? Can scholarship be a form of service or even worship for a believer? If so, how can we best go about worshipping in this way?
Under this theme, appropriate topics for paper proposals would include but are not limited to:

• the spiritual value of secular education
• goals of a religious university
• faith and reason/faith and knowledge/faith and skepticism
• the value and risks of empirical evidence for faith claims
• roles of belief and practice in the life of faith
• theology and other scholarship as acts of devotion
• continuing revelation and prophetic authority
• defining church doctrine
• intellectual freedom in the house of faith
• religion and the secular academy

Submission deadline: December 1st, 2010
Authors may submit either (a) a full paper, or (b) a précis:
(a) Papers should be suitable for a reading time of 25–30 minutes (3500 words maximum). Longer papers (up to 9,000 words) may be submitted in full, with the understanding that they will be revised for presentation.
(b) A précis should be about 1000 words in length, and summarize the argument of the paper.

Please send submissions in RTF, PDF, or MS Word format, to SMPT Secretary Benjamin Huff at benjaminhuff@rmc.edu, by email attachment. Include author's full name, contact information, title and word count for the paper or précis.
The Society welcomes submissions by students. Some funding is available, on a competitive basis, to reimburse travel for student presenters. Students should indicate their student status, and any interest in being considered for travel support, in the submission email.
Authors will be notified of acceptance by January 14th, 2011.
For more information, visit our web site at http://www.smpt.org/, or contact Benjamin Huff at benjaminhuff@rmc.edu, or SMPT President Daniel C. Peterson at daniel_peterson@byu.edu.