“It seems to me that my lack of faith is not, as I once thought, a triumph of the rational mind, but rather a failure of the imagination—an inability to tolerate mystery.” -Zoë Heller

This conversation will be wide ranging and open-ended. Bob will start us out with a short introduction to the topic and then as a group, we will be exploring the value of questions, imagination, mystery, and creativity in a church that was in great part, formed with these essential ingredients yet often struggles to hold on to those foundational impulses. What do we imagine the church can be as it continues to restore? Not just The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints but the larger “Church” that encompasses all the human desires to connect with the divine and each other? How do you imagine yourself playing a part in this ongoing imagination of the divine?

Until his retirement in 2022, Bob was Visiting Professor and Director of Mormon Studies at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He has taught at UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin and Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania where he was a Fulbright Professor of American Studies (1995-96). He is the co-founder of the Bountiful children’s Foundation co-founder and president of FastForward for the Planet, an initiative addressing climate change and earth stewardship.

Rees has published widely on Mormon and Religious Studies. His most recent publications are A New Witness to the World: Reading and Re-reading the Book of Mormon (2020) and Why I Stay 2: The Challenge of Discipleship for Contemporary Latter-day Saints (2021), Making Space for Mormon Thought and Culture: The Enduring Influence of Eugene England (2025). The Editor of Proving Contraries: A Collection of Writings in Honor of Eugene England (2005) and the co-editor with (Eugene England) of The Reader’s Book of Mormon. His book-length study, “Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration.” was published by Kofford Books in 2025.