Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport

Armand L. Mauss is emeritus professor of sociology and religious studies at Washington State University, USA and has more recently taught Mormon Studies as an adjunct faculty member at Claremont Graduate University, USA.

"Mauss's contribution to Mormon scholarship and to sociological theory was to argue that over time Mormonism had adjusted the degree of strain with the rest of the world. This ongoing adjustment phenomenon had not been recognized by sociologists before Mauss discovered it in Mormonism. Now it has become a significant corollary to the theory of New Religious Movements. Mauss always stood at the shifting border between the university and the church, ready to step across onto the church side whenever he could make a difference."-from the foreword by Richard L. Bushman "Armand Mauss will continue to be an important interpreter of Mormon history, and his Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport provides an excellent introduction to the man and his ideas-well worth reading before taking on his two seminal monographs, Angel and the Beehive and All Abraham's Children."-Utah Historical Quarterly "As both a Latter-day Saint and a scholar, [Mauss] has used his passport to move between the church and the academy, and in so doing has built bridges between them. He has shown his fellow Saints that they need not be suspicious of rigorous, scholarly inquiry; and he has shown his fellow scholars how Mormonism is an important example of a 'peculiar people' who have survived, and thrived, in a religiously pluralistic society. While no one will ever fill Armand Mauss's shoes, I hope that many others will follow in his path. Both the Saints and scholars will be better off for it."-Mormon Studies Review