Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship
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Mormon Studies Review

Martin E. Marty

Keywords

Leonard Arrington, Mormonism, history, scholarship, Auden

Abstract

An excerpt from a long poem by W. H. Auden comes to mind as a framework for assessing these two publications featuring Mormon historian Leonard J. Arrington. He was poised—we might say surefooted—in his Mormon faith and by commitments to the church. At the same time, Arrington consistently made clear that his calling was to be a scholar who excelled in the writing of history in modes acceptable among university-based researchers and writers of many faiths, or of non-faith. There was never any doubt that he pursued his vocation imaginatively and steadfastly through the decades. While these books give evidence that he often felt stress–occasioned by the demands he recognized in his complex pursuit—they also demonstrate how, again, “sure-footedly” he moved as a productive historian in this second role or stance. The lines of the Auden poem suggest a metaphor for this in the posture of mountain-climbers:

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