gramps wrote:Really? I thought he was. Or did he just come from an inactive family?
His father was a nevermo, and his mother was a "less-active" Mormon. He attended church off and on growing up, and then when his girlfriend told him she wouldn't marry someone who wasn't a returned missionary, he went on a mission.
some details about 'Jack' Newell's background and conversion can be found in this 1978 Ensign article.
an excerpt: My husband was converted to the Church by the example of a college roommate who lived his religion, and Jack noticed. Six years after their initial meeting, this friend baptized him. Perhaps because of Jack’s own conversion experience, we have never tried to push our values onto our friends, though we do delight in sharing our religious values when the circumstances are right. At the same time, we have found that we have gained immeasurably from allowing friends to share their own life-styles—and what a smorgasbord of memories that has become!
palerobber wrote:We all know and could easily name many highly intelligent and well educated people who are active believers in the Mormon Church today.
But who is the most intelligent person living today who converted to Mormonism as an adult?
Who is the brightest light among us who embraced Mormonism without having "believed implicitly in the maxims that he had imbibed at his mother's knee", but rather after the sort of fully informed and unbiased consideration that only an adult outsider could really hope to give. And furthermore, as we're all aware of the way love and loyalty can complicate life decisions of this sort, I would also rule out for purposes of this thread any convert who was married to, or seriously dating, a member of the LDS faith at the time of their conversion.
I don't have anyone in mind myself and look forward to any suggestions. Feel free to define "intelligent" any way you see fit.
lightlyshadedpilferer, where are you going with this thread?
That said, with the Book of Mormon, we are not dealing with a civilization with no written record. What we are dealing with is a written record with no civilization. (Runtu, Feb 2015)
"The Church is authoritarian, tribal, provincial, and founded on a loosely biblical racist frontier sex cult."--Juggler Vain "The lds church is the Amway of religions. Even with all the soap they sell, they still manage to come away smelling dirty."--Some Schmo
John S. Lewis (phd from UC-San Diego, baptized while professor at MIT, at about age of 40) Thorsten Ritz (phd from Univ. of Ulm, baptized while phd candidate) Gordon F. Holbein (phd from Penn State, baptized while undergrad at Dartmouth) Marianne M. Jennings (John Dehlin from BYU, baptized while undergrad at BYU) Koji Okumura (phd from BYU, baptized at age 18 or 19)
anyone know any of these fine folks or their work?
