I just snared an advance reading copy ("ARC") of God and Country: Politics in Utah (Signature, March 2005), edited by Jeffery Sells, which I added to my February 2005 Book of the Month slot (upper left). The book is a collection of essays by a diverse group of scholars and civic leaders in law, politics, and religion, giving what amounts to the non-LDS perspective on the role of church and state in Utah. As such, it certainly provides some novel views of life in Utah that even career Utahns have probably never considered, such as "Living a Jewish Life in Utah," by a Jewish Rabbi who is also an adjunct faculty member at BYU. It also provides a contemporary example of a locality where a type of informal religious establishment can be examined and observed, nicely complementing the 18th- and 19th-century American examples that are generally used to frame such a discussion.
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