I went to an unusual book club the other day. It wasn't just unusual for the fact that it was open to members of both genders.* Rather, the organizers of the meeting decided it wasn't good enough to just read a book and talk about it. They decided to invite the author.

So it was that I met Jan Shipps, the pre-eminent non-Mormon scholar of Mormonism. I'd heard much about Shipps before, but had never really read anything she'd written. Given the chance to meet her, though, I checked out not only the book that had been designated for the book club, but also her earlier book, just to make sure I understood her and her ideas.

One of our first topics of discussion was the Mormon sense of peoplehood, and whether we still believe, as we apparently used to, that Mormons are tied together not just by culture and belief, but by literal "believing blood." I commented that although I don't necessarily feel a literal kinship with my LDS brothers and sisters, I do feel an immediate bond with any Mormon I meet, because I know we understand each other and share a lot of the same background.

The weird thing was that Jan Shipps and I understood each other too, and she understood my background just as well as any Mormon. She speaks the lingo and seemed very comfortable in a group of Mormons. But I couldn't get it out of my head that she's a staunch Methodist. She used "you," not "we" when referring to the policies of the LDS Church. Here's a person who isn't a member of my church who understands my church perhaps better than I do.

The best line of the evening was when she was discussing her role as the person a lot of reporters come to when they're doing stories that involve Mormonism. She was explaining the difference between the press inquiries she received during the Salt Lake Olympics and during the Mitt Romney presidential campaign (she said the Olympics coverage of Mormonism focused primarily on behavior ("Those Mormons are sure courteous and clean-cut!"), whereas the coverage during the Romney campaign focused on belief ("Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers?")). Rambling a little bit about Romney, she said, "Now, will he be the next vice-president? I don't know. In a lot of ways, I hope not - I'd really like to finish my book!"

The thing that impressed me the most was when she stated that she has taken a position of not looking at the anti-Mormon materials that reveal the sacred ordinances of the temple. "I respect that the members of the Church regard that as sacred, and something that isn't open to outsiders, so I stay out of it." She said that the Brethren allow her greater access to some of the materials in the Church Archives than the ydo to a lot of Mormon historians. She said, "I think it's because the Brethren trust me because of my position on the temple."

On the other side of the "impressed" spectrum was when someone asked her a question that I'd been wondering while I was reading her books: Where do you personally believe the Book of Mormon came from? She ducked the question, saying that she hasn't ever really taken a position on where it came from, preferring to focus on studying and discussing what happens to people when they decide it's true or false. A disappointing answer. But then she added, almost as an aside, an obvious but telling statement: "Of course, if I really believed that the Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be, I'd be a Mormon."

All in all, it was a fabulous meeting that made me think more about my faith, my people, and my history. Leave it to someone who doesn't share my faith, my people, or my history to make me do it.

* Pet peeve: Why is it that nearly every book club I've ever heard of is a women-only thing? Do people think that men don't read? I read! I'd like to discuss the books I read with other people!