“When in the course of Divine Providence, it becomes our duty to record one of those remarkable events which gives birth to a new era, and lays the foundation for the renovation of the moral world; it fills the mind with wonder, astonishment, and admiration . . .”1
This introduction to the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ was written by Apostle Orson Hyde in 1851while on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to England. While this declaration introduces its readers to the news of the origins of the Church, it also provides a much wider and more profound perspective on the aims and the possibilities lying before the new Church made available through the truth and knowledge which constitute the core of that Restoration. The Restoration brings with it nothing short of the promise of a foundation of knowledge and truth capable and sufficient to bringing about the “renovation of the moral world.” We take from this that the Restoration is intended and enabled not just to have an impact on the religious world – through doctrine and practice — but to effect the formation of a new Christian sect as the modern-day successor of the ancient Church. Beyond this strictly religious impact, however, the truths and understandings associated with this restoration have transformative implications for the entire moral world, which world is the human world, consisting of the entire human family and their meaningful activities, including intellectual and moral understandings and practices. In short, we claim that within the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed as part of the on-going restoration we have access to the essence of what it means to be a human being and what manner of persons we ought to be.
The truths and doctrines of the Restored Gospel and the Restored Church, because they are germane to the whole of the moral world, have relevance to virtually every intellectual, moral, and academic endeavor that bears upon any aspect of the moral world and thus to most academic disciplines. For this reason, the Restored Gospel as proclaimed by Apostolic witness has the capacity to enhance or to challenge, to renovate or cut through, or even to redeem the content and application of each and any discipline that bears upon the moral world. While the Sharon Institute is not established to advocate for any particular orthodoxy, we do proclaim absolute fidelity to the doctrines and truths of the Restored Church as articulated under Apostolic authority.
It is the mission and purpose of the Sharon Institute (SI) to study and apply the doctrines and truths of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Restored Church to the intellectual investigation and understanding of the human world. The goal is to enhance the scholarship and interpretation of the moral world by bringing to that intellectual project the truths and knowledge available in the Restored Gospel and the Restored Church. There have been various organizations and movements that have taken up, one way or another, the project of bringing the theories and philosophical methods and knowledge to bear on the teachings and doctrines of the church, presumably to improve on the intellectual quality of our understanding of the Gospel. The Sharon Institute explicitly formulates is mission oriented in the opposite direction – to bring the truths of the Restored Gospel to bear on the academic disciplines, to improve and renovate those disciplines, and to improve on the intellectual quality of the disciplines and disciplinary knowledge claims they proffer. In approaching the project in this direction, we hold that the quality of scholarly and disciplinary work will be enhanced, and faith and knowledge will be increased and refined because the truth and knowledge of the Restoration is taken seriously as the foundation of our scholarly hypotheses, methods, and understandings. The name, Sharon Institute, refers to Sharon Vermont, the birthplace of the Prophet Joseph Smith who was the first prophet of the Restoration. It is also meant to remind us that it was Sharon Vermont where the Restoration really began, so we are also, in all our studies, called back to the Restoration itself, and the truth and knowledge it affords us, and always to the beginning point, the grounds, and foundations of our ideas, knowledge, understandings and truth.
Projects and Products
As an explicitly scholarly and professional organization, the Sharon Institute exists to support, produce, and disseminate scholarly and intellectual work that enhances knowledge and understanding by bringing the light and knowledge available in the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ to bear on the important questions and issues present in the moral world today. It seeks to produce and disseminate high quality, rigorous scholarship that explicates and brings to bear restored truth on significant questions and issues regarding our humanity, the moral world, and the Christian message restored in our day. While it may be expected that much of the scholarly work produced, supported, and disseminated by the Institution will come from philosophy, religion, the social sciences, the humanities, relevant work across a broader landscape of science and scholarship are most welcome.
Organization
The organizational leadership of the Sharon Institute consists of s Board of Directors composed of an Executive Director, a Managing Director, a Secretary/Treasurer, a Journal Editor and three, at large members of the Board of Directors appointed by vote and agreement of the four sitting officers of the Board. An advisory Board, consisting of scholars, leaders, and donors who support the mission and goals of the SI will be formed by the Board of Directors. The role of the advisory board will be to assist in the prosecution of the mission of the organization, the dissemination of its scholarly work, and to offer suggestions, support, and seek to help in the accomplishment of the foundational mission of the SI.
Official Status
The Sharon is a legally established 501c3 nonprofit organization so that funds can be received, and grants can be pursued to allow the SI to pursue its mission and function as a scholarly organization. This also allows tax benefits for donors who choose to support the SI financially. The Board of Directors will oversee the receipt and disposition of funds, and the management of the financial activities and accounts or the organization, so that all financial affairs are handled in accordance with the bylaws of the organization as written.
Event and Projects
- Scholarly Conferences. The SI will hold at least an annual scholarly conference at which scholarly work sponsored by or otherwise in keeping with the founding mission of the organization will be presented to other scholars and to the interested wider public.
- Scholarly Publication. The SI will publish in the form of an electronic journal, monograph series, and/or other scholarly formats. It is anticipated that students and young scholars will be engaged in the organization’s scholarly products. The Director and the Board will be ultimately responsible for the scholarly content and production All decisions made about publication will be made primarily on the basis of the fit with the founding mission of the SI and its fidelity to the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Restored Church.
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1 Times and Seasons, Vol. 2, No. 23, p. 551.