life of the mind: an intimate biography of paul m. edwards

"Born into the founding family of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Paul Madison Edwards was overwhelmed by the paradox of faith and reason. As a church member, and especially as a descendant of the prophet, there were certain expectations, but he was curious, often confused or dissatisfied with explanation, and unusually aware of abstraction. Growing up, Paul did not appreciate the attention that came with his family heritage, of having his grandfather Frederick Madison Smith as church president and his father F. Henry Edwards as an apostle and later a member of the First Presidency. "People would ask me, if I got a C in school, 'what would Fred M. think?' That kind of stuff... And there was that constant Smith family stuff. When you're young that's hard to understand. My older brother could not have cared less. He just ignored it. My sister ignored it. For some reason it just sort of hung on me like an albatross." Sparked by experiences during combat in the Korean War, Paul returned to the Midwest to begin a lifelong pursuit to understand what we know and how we know it, as a church and as human beings, and thus how we shape our history.