Talk:BYU Studies

Paid access

It looks like all BYU studies articles going back to 1959 are now only downloadable with either a paid subscription or a payment per download. Anyone know when this happened? I can still see things on their site (here) where they say everything is free up to the most recent 2 years, and I remember downloading some content about a month ago, I think. ——Rich jj (talk) 21:43, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

1925 series

The Encyclopedia of Mormonism has a nice list of LDS Church periodicals in its Appendix 3. On the second page it says BYU Studies was first published between 1925-37 before starting again in 1959. What on earth is this 1925-37 period? I've never seen anything related to this before. I am inclined to think it is an accident. The unidentified author of Appendix 3 should certainly have known better, since many of the EOM authors were very familiar with the journal, many having worked at BYU, many having published in the journal, and many using BYU Studies as a source in these very EOM articles. This list even sorted BYU Studies chronologically in the 1920s. Strange. ——Rich jj (talk) 21:04, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

After some searching, I've found mention of this earlier obscure journal. It's not a mistake.

• Found in the Church History Library catalog
• Found in the BYU Library Catalog
• Mentioned in the BYU library register for BYU Studies Administration Files
• Listing from the Hathi Trust Digital Library
• Listing from WorldCat alongside holdings of the 1959 series (though I can't tell which are the two libraries that hold this 1925 series)
• Cited in Walker, Whittaker, and Allen's Mormon History (see footnote 41)

It looks pretty obscure and I'm not sure in what way it should be mentioned in this article. ——Rich jj (talk) 16:55, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Confessional

I'm not sure that 'Confessional' is the correct adjective. It can be easily confused with Confessional writing. What about 'theological' in keeping with the precedent set here at List of theology journals. Epachamo (talk) 18:53, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

To me "Theological" implies it only covers the topic of theology - theology seems to me like a narrower subset of topics that Mormon studies covers, which also includes history, culture, sociology, etc in addition to theology. I've parsing through pages in the Category:Christianity studies journals to see how other similar academic journals are described, and most seem to have verbiage that matched the WP:STATUSQUO wording. It might be worth pinging Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals to get outside opinions from the relevant wikiproject. --FyzixFighter (talk) 00:37, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Maybe "theology" isn't the right term either, but somewhere it should prominently be noted early on that it is not a typical academic journal, that it is informed by "spiritual inquiry". Epachamo (talk) 05:54, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Fair point. There are two questions that come to my mind - is there a consistent way in which secondary sources (in this case, probably publication databases like ATLA or JSTOR)? and how do articles for similar religious studies journals handle this?

BYU Studies itself says "publishes scholarship that is informed by the restored gospel of Jesus Christ", which is too jargon-y for here. JSTOR describes it as "a Mormon Studies journal that publishes articles that reflect a faithful point of view, are relevant to subjects of interest to Latter-day Saints, and conform to high scholarly standards", which is a better but seems to me to still be a bit jargon-y and long.

I looked at several of religious studies articles in the Protestant and Catholic categories, and the most used pattern (if it is addressed at all) is to say "from a [insert faith tradition] perspective.

Given that I think the first sentence should be "...is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed academic journal covering a broad array of topics in the field of Mormon studies from a Latter-day Saint perspective, although it does publish authors outside of that faith tradition." It matches well with the secondary sources identified so far and with existing similar wikipedia articles. Thoughts? --FyzixFighter (talk) 21:34, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

What about "a Mormon studies peer-reviewed academic journal with the stated purpose of promoting the Latter-day Saint perspective". It seems that while the authors might be outside the faith tradition, they won't publish an article if it didn't promote the faith tradition. Epachamo (talk) 00:00, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

@Epachamo: I feel like saying it is "promoting" is making an unverifiable inference not found in the sources, which use "informed by" and "reflect" in the examples I mentioned above. If it's a "stated purpose", where is this clearly stated? Using "from a LDS perspective" also follows the same pattern as Journal of Pentecostal Theology, Newman Studies Journal, Lumen Veritatis, Logos (Catholic journal), and Philosophia Christi. Also in those examples and the majority of the similar religious studies articles the pattern mentions the publisher and/or the field after the simple statement of "an academic journal". The "outside the faith tradition" was an attempt to capture the comment in the Paulsen & Musser reference and do something like what is found in Evangelical Review of Theology and Politics, but the more I think on it, the sentence becomes too unwieldy. "Multidisciplinary" also seem redundant with "broad array of topics".

How about simplification to "...a peer-reviewed academic journal covering multiple topics within Mormon studies from a Latter-day Saint perspective".

--FyzixFighter (talk) 01:02, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I think matching the broader pattern on Wikipedia is probably the best way to go. I would be ok with that last simplification. @ජපස, I see you have been editing recently as well, what do you think? Are you ok with "a peer-reviewed academic journal covering multiple topics within Mormon studies from a Latter-day Saint perspective" following the pattern elsewhere on Wikipedia? Epachamo (talk) 15:26, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

@Epachamo - when and if you feel enough time as elapsed for comment, can I ask you to make the change to the text (might avoid a reflexive revert if I do it)? --FyzixFighter (talk) 20:40, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

@ජපස:, I think I pinged you incorrectly earlier, I don't want to make the change without getting your comment. Do you have any thoughts? Epachamo (talk) 20:19, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

I am none too big a fan of "confessional", but I think it is marginally better than "theological". What I'm not okay with is not acknowleding the uniqueness of this journal in terms of its stated purpose to glorify the position of the LDS Church. The point is that the journal itself requires a kind of singular purpose: to promote the beliefs of the LDS Church. One could call it "propaganda" or "proselytizing" or "promoting church dogma". But it isn't really "theological" because that is a protected academic discipline which makes no claim to precise dogma other than an acknowledgement that one generally has a preferred one. Does that make sense? jps (talk) 21:35, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Another synonym is credal, but that is an even more obscure term. jps (talk) 21:36, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Actually, now that I read the discussion, as long as "from the LDS Church perspective" is front and center, that would be fine. I think it can't just be "Latter-day Saint perspective" because it is tied to one particular church and not the broader movement. jps (talk) 21:39, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Being obnoxiously nitpicky, Latter-day Saint (with a lower case 'd' and a hyphen) refers to the Brighamite LDS Church in literature, while Latter Day Saint refers to the broader movement. That arcane distinction won't be picked up by the average reader though, so I would agree that LDS Church would probably be better. @FyzixFighter, any objections to: "A peer-reviewed academic journal covering multiple topics within Mormon studies from the LDS Church perspective" Epachamo (talk) 03:36, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Well, if the capitalization-hyphenation distinction is made via a wikilink, that's potentially alright, but if it tripped me up, not sure it will make it clear to most readers. I can't for the life of me understand how this kind of distinction ever took hold in the literature considering that two terms are pronounced exactly the same way. LOL. jps (talk) 14:36, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree that "Latter-day Saint" implies the Brighamite LDS Church based on current occurrences in the literature. Wikilinking the term does seem to be the built-in strategy for terms that might need additional clarification for readers. I feel that "Latter-day Saint perspective" also allows for a broader range of perspectives within the community - LDS are not monolithic in their views and I have seen things in BYU Studies that I myself don't agree with. Saying "LDS Church perspective" seems to imply that the views and opinions in the articles and essays are official statements by the Church, which isn't the case here - BYU Studies has included a disclaimer that the opinions and essays are not necessarily the views of the Church. There's probably a lot of topics covered by the journal where the Church itself has no stated or official view. So I think a wikilinked "Latter-day Saint perspective" is more accurate. -- FyzixFighter (talk) 23:08, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

I have not seen any work in BYU Studies which is apostate. Have you? The stated mission of the journal appears to be defined as one which is within the boundaries of what is acceptable to the LDS Church. It is not doctrine, but that is simply because it is not the organ with which the LDS Church speaks. In any case, it is instructive that there exist similar Catholic, Evangelical, and even Islamic journals. This is why the term "confessional" actually is a bit more accurate than anything else. It requires credal support, or, at least, a lack of credal opposition to get published. jps (talk) 00:27, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

@FyzixFighter, What if it were "an LDS Church perspective" rather than "the LDS Church perspective". I don't agree that it implies official sanction. Epachamo (talk) 18:34, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I still think "a Latter-day Saint perspective" is sufficient to indicate it applies to a subset of the broader movement, as described in MOS:MORMON. Also, the acronym "LDS Church" will not have been previously defined - I think the logical place to define the acronym would be where the lede mentions that BYU is a church-sponsored university. -- FyzixFighter (talk) 15:59, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Since its the first mention of the church, the MOS says we should also use the whole church name. So what if we used: "A peer-reviewed academic journal covering multiple topics within Mormon studies from the perspective of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church)"? Epachamo (talk) 17:37, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

But doesn't that reintroduce the definite article? I should have said that I tried to think of ways to keep the indefinite article and "LDS Church", but they all became quite complicated. Balancing that against the previous concerns, I am still trying to understand why the MOS:LDS suggested use of the "Latter-day Saint" descriptor is more problematic. -- FyzixFighter (talk) 12:44, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Because y'all didn't have enough input about how people outside the local consensus that more-or-less defines MOS:LDS operates. I promise you, from the perspective of a somewhat interested outsider, your MOS choices do not map on to wider reality easily. "LDS Church" is a more succinct way to introduce the idea, but if we are going to go full big-tent, I would argue that y'all could even say "devout, mainstream Mormon perspective" because that's ultimately what we're talking about. jps (talk) 14:22, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

@FyzixFighterI really really don't think the definite article implies official sanction. If I say something is from an "American" perspective, it doesn't imply that the US Government endorses it. Just based on how other articles use the exact same wording, I think we should go with that. At the very least, do you think we could make the change and further debate definite articles in a separate section? Epachamo (talk) 17:17, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I work for BYU Studies and wanted to put in my two cents. (I realize I'm too connected to the subject to make unbiased edits so I won't). I appreciate the thoughtful discussion so far, especially the move away from “confessional,” which—while technically defensible in religious studies—can imply lack of scholarly rigor to general readers. Even more concerning to me is the phrase, "exclusively of and for" the Church, which is an extremely strong claim without source or nuance. It sounds like an editorial opinion rather than a neutral description. BYU Studies engages in peer-reviewed scholarship across a range of disciplines and its audience and authors include both Latter-day Saints and non-Latter-day Saints.

After working here for seven years, here is how I would present it:

“BYU Studies is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary academic journal published by Brigham Young University, the flagship educational institution of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It publishes scholarship from a Latter-day Saint worldview and scholarly tradition. The journal is abstracted and indexed in the ATLA Religion Database.”

I believe that emphasizing BYU and the Church's role in sponsoring the journal is a neutral way of describing the vibe of the publication without editorializing.

Thanks again to all of you for the careful work here. I'll admit not being very familiar with Wikipedia edit culture, so I'll apologize in advance if I've messed up here. Thanks!

Cougurrd (talk) 18:23, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

Question: do we have a source that can identify what exactly the "scholarly tradition" if of the Latter-day Saint? For example, it is not one that preferences much of mainstream academic scholarship when it contradicts the dogma of the church, no? I am also uncomfortable with the relegating of the worldview and tradition identification to the second sentence. It is, indeed, what sets this particular publication apart from most other publications. jps (talk) 18:37, 17 July 2025 (UTC)