The Religious Studies Center may be turning forty, but its resources put a modern spin on the wisdom of the ages. Read how you can benefit from its free online publications.
The Religious Studies Center (RSC) was founded in 1975 under the direction of Jeffrey R. Holland while he was serving as dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. His goal was to make the religious publishing efforts at the university more productive. At that time, religious education at BYU included a variety of study and research groups, and Brother Holland determined that the university needed a way to publish its own findings and to make them available to the general public.
Today, the RSC publishes the Religious Educator, a print and online journal that includes articles on LDS scripture, doctrine, history, and culture. The articles are authored by General Authorities, seminary and institute teachers, and some of the foremost Latter-day Saint scholars and educators.
The center sponsors major conferences based on religious learning, such as the Church History Symposium, the Book of Mormon Symposium, the Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, and the Religious Education Student Symposium—and publishes many of these presentations.
The RSC’s website includes vast collections of monographs and edited collections and other materials that the RSC has published, such as “My Gospel Study.” These materials can be very helpful when studying the gospel for anything from a church talk or a lesson in Sunday School to personal study.
After its first few years, the RSC hired university students to help with the editing and publishing of the works; the center also started a student journal, Studia Antiqua, for student academic works. This student journal accepts papers that primarily treat topics prior to the end of Late Antiquity (ca. 620 CE). The journal encourages any students who write papers that fall within this category to submit their work for possible publication.
Take a look at rsc.byu.edu for free articles that may answer many of your questions and give you a greater understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Source: The Religious Studies Center
—Mackenzie Brown, Mormon Insights
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Look at all the publications at the RSC for articles on a variety of topics.