Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship
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Mormon Studies Review

Steven L. Peck

Keywords

science, Latter-day Saints, creationism, word of wisdom, evolution

Abstract

The relationship between science and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been and continues to be a complicated story. Concerns and differing perspectives about science provided the underlying context for a number of formal and informal institutional directions taken by the church in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. Often, these were influenced by differences in opinion about science among various leaders of the church. Areas in which science played a role include: the relationship between secular and church education, a battleground in framing doctrinal questions about creation—including syncretic influence from the rise of Christian fundamentalism and creationism; how science should be used or ignored in apologetic efforts; its role in framing health concerns and interpretations of the church’s health code found in the Word of Wisdom; and other boundary areas in which science and the church overlap. These concerns continue today as science weighs in on the biology of homosexuality and the nature of the claims of gender essentialism; the genetics and archeology of New World populations, which influence the interpretation of the Book of Mormon as a historical document; the continued influence of evolution as the uncontested scientific paradigm for understanding biology; and other things of concern to the institutional church and individual members.

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