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Let Your Hearts and Minds Expand: Reflections on Faith, Reason, Charity, and Beauty
Thomas F. Rogers has lived his Latter-day Saint faith all over the world. The experiences he relates from far-flung places, mingled with thirty-one years as a BYU professor of Russian, offer remarkable insight into the hard work always involved when we practice charity, "the pure love of Christ" (Moroni 7:47). Let Your Hearts and Minds Expand is his spiritually and intellectually stimulating collection of essays, articles, letters, poetry, and art exploring the dimensions of faith, reason, charity, and beauty.
Rogers is a defender of the faith, but his book moves us well beyond typical apologetics. His Mormonism serves as the bedrock for discussions on the life of the mind, the value of literature, and the challenges of religious orthodoxy. A common thread is the journey of those who have become disenchanted with their faith. Souls who, according to Rogers, have often been gifted, even brilliant. Having asked all the right questions, they've somehow found themselves on the outside, uncertain if they want to come back. Rogers speaks to them—and to that part in each of us—calling for reasonable, faithful, even joyful, reunion.
Part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute's Living Faith book series.
Rogers is a defender of the faith, but his book moves us well beyond typical apologetics. His Mormonism serves as the bedrock for discussions on the life of the mind, the value of literature, and the challenges of religious orthodoxy. A common thread is the journey of those who have become disenchanted with their faith. Souls who, according to Rogers, have often been gifted, even brilliant. Having asked all the right questions, they've somehow found themselves on the outside, uncertain if they want to come back. Rogers speaks to them—and to that part in each of us—calling for reasonable, faithful, even joyful, reunion.
Part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute's Living Faith book series.
349 pages, Paperback
Published June 14, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 6, 2025
I feel so lucky to have been able to take a class from Tom Rogers while at BYU years ago: a seminar in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. This book shows what I only glimpsed then: what it looks like when a vast intelligence takes on the humanities--literature, language, holy writ, experience--from the stance of a committed follower of Christ and light.
May 17, 2018
Overall quite good - some of the essays didn't really fit my specific interests
October 23, 2018
https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fulls...
Some of this was hard, thick, philosophical sledding, but I did get through it to some real gems. This is a man of deep experience and spirit.
If you read it, do not get discouraged. As with all compilations of essays, just skip the pieces which bog you down. There is some very uplifting stuff here, worth the digging.
Some of this was hard, thick, philosophical sledding, but I did get through it to some real gems. This is a man of deep experience and spirit.
If you read it, do not get discouraged. As with all compilations of essays, just skip the pieces which bog you down. There is some very uplifting stuff here, worth the digging.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews