Neal A. Maxwell institute-BYU

The Neal. A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU is a little eclectic. It’s difficult for me to tell what they’re trying to accomplish. Frankly, it comes across to me a bunch of people saying more and more about less and less.

Here’s their mission statement:

“Our mission is to deepen understanding and nurture discipleship among Latter-day Saints and to promote mutual respect and
goodwill among people of all faiths through the scholarly study of religious texts and traditions.”

That’s a fine mission statement, but it completely contradicts a lot of the material in their archives. I’ve asked about this. I was told that when they inherited FARMS, they had to archive all the old stuff for academic reasons. Which I understand. But when I asked if they would publish rebuttals or even just notes, they said no.

That said, their archive is a goldmine of material, good and bad. If you want to see some irrational support for the Mesoamerican theory, it’s there. If you want to see what people at FARMS were doing, it’s there. I use it all the time.