Eugene England (1933-2001)—one of the most influential and controversial intellectuals in modern Mormonism—lived in the crossfire between religious tradition and reform. This first serious biography, by leading historian Terryl L. Givens, shimmers with the personal tensions felt deeply by England during the turmoil of the late twentieth century. Drawing on unprecedented access to England's personal papers, Givens paints a multifaceted portrait of a devout Latter-day Saint whose precarious position on the edge of church hierarchy was instrumental to his ability to shape the study of modern Mormonism. A professor of literature at Brigham Young University, England also taught in the Church Educational System. And yet from the sixties on, he set church leaders' teeth on edge as he protested the Vietnam War, decried institutional racism and sexism, and supported Poland's Solidarity movement—all at a time when Latter-day Saints were ultra-patriotic and banned Black ordination. England could also be intemperate, proud of his own rectitude, and neglectful of political realities and relationships, and he was eventually forced from his academic position. His last days, as he suffered from brain cancer, were marked by a spiritual agony that church leaders were unable to help him resolve.

Eugene England championed an optimistic Mormon faith open to liberalizing ideas from American culture. At the same time, he remained devoted to a conservative Mormonism that he saw as a vehicle for progress even as it narrowed the range of acceptable belief. Kristine L. Haglund views England’s writing through the tensions produced by his often-opposed intellectual and spiritual commitments. Though labeled a liberal, England had a traditional Latter-day Saint background and always sought to address fundamental questions in Mormon terms. His intellectually adventurous essays sometimes put him at odds with Church authorities and fellow believers. But he also influenced a generation of thinkers and cofounded Dialogue, a Mormon academic and literary journal acclaimed for the broad range of its thought. A fascinating portrait of a Mormon intellectual and his times, Eugene England reveals a believing scholar who emerged from the lived experiences of his faith to engage with the changes roiling Mormonism in the twentieth century.

Originally published: Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, c1986.

At a time when society has become so violent that school children conceal weapons in their waistbands, Eugene England suggests that everyone take a moment to reconsider where they stand on issues. Using his hallmark literary forms of personal essay and autobiographical short story, he draws examples from his own life to illustrate the complexities people face at home, in their neighborhoods, at work, and in the pews. Admitting to no easy answers, he shows through plot and metaphor of well developed stories, and through the penetrating view of his unrelenting mind, the dangers and advantages of various options.He takes readers on road trips to present the Christian ethic in a new and seductive light. He recounts the times when inner tranquility and outward peace have come to his own family and community in unusual ways. Whether traipsing through Utah's trout streams, visiting strife-torn Los Angeles, or sorting out the cultural maze he encountered on a church mission to American Samoa, England proposes paths people might follow to reconcile ambiguities in maintaining a caring, purposeful existence in the 1990s and beyond.

In honor of the late BYU Professor Eugene England (1933-2001), friends and colleagues have contributed their best original stories, poems, reminiscences, scholarly articles, and essays for this impressive volume. In one essay, "Eugene England Enters Heaven," Robert A. Rees imagines his friend being welcomed into heaven by the Savior. Rees then imagines England "organizing contests between the Telestial and Celestial Kingdoms, leading a theater tour to Kolob, and pleading the cause of friends still struggling in mortality. This," he concludes, "is the image I have of Gene, that I hold in my heart."

“An extraordinary work of intellectual history as well as a scholarly tour de force, a bracing polemic, and a work of Christian prophecy...McCarraher challenges more than 200 years of post-Enlightenment assumptions about the way we live and work.” —The Observer At least since Max Weber, capitalism has been understood as part of the “disenchantment” of the world, stripping material objects and social relations of their mystery and magic. In this magisterial work, Eugene McCarraher challenges this conventional view. Capitalism, he argues, is full of sacrament, whether one is prepared to acknowledge it or not. First flowering in the fields and factories of England and brought to America by Puritans and evangelicals, whose doctrine made ample room for industry and profit, capitalism has become so thoroughly enmeshed in the fabric of our society that our faith in “the market” has become sacrosanct. Informed by cultural history and theology as well as management theory, The Enchantments of Mammon looks to nineteenth-century Romantics, whose vision of labor combined reason, creativity, and mutual aid, for salvation. In this impassioned challenge to some of our most firmly held assumptions, McCarraher argues that capitalism has hijacked our intrinsic longing for divinity—and urges us to break its hold on our souls. “A majestic achievement...It is a work of great moral and spiritual intelligence, and one that invites contemplation about things we can’t afford not to care about deeply.” —Commonweal “More brilliant, more capacious, and more entertaining, page by page, than his most ardent fans dared hope. The magnitude of his accomplishment—an account of American capitalism as a religion...will stun even skeptical readers.” —Christian Century