Most Latter-day Saints never get a college humanities education — and the tradition they inherit deserves one. The Restoration was argued into being by people who read philosophy, theology, and history seriously. Roberts Academy exists to put that inheritance within reach of anyone: structured courses, real readings, honest scholarship, at no cost.
The academy is not a devotional site and not a debate club. Courses are academically straight — what philosophers actually argued, what Christians have actually believed, what historians can actually know — taught by people who love both the material and the Restoration. Where the two meet, we note it honestly and let you think.
- Reading-first
- Every course is fully teachable and completable as written lessons — original essays of 800–1,500 words with free readings. Videos, when they come, are enrichment, never a prerequisite.
- Free readings
- Every assigned reading is free — primary sources from the public domain, encyclopedia entries from the Stanford and Internet Encyclopedias of Philosophy. Recommended books are always optional.
- Active recall
- Each lesson ends with a short quiz built for understanding, not trivia. Completing lessons earns XP, levels, and seals — a light structure for the discipline self-directed study requires.
- Open in order
- Courses open as their lessons are written and pass editorial review. Forthcoming courses publish their planned outlines first, so you can always see where the curriculum is going.
Curriculum developed by LJ Saurman with Noah Airmet and friends of the academy.
Brigham Henry Roberts arrived in Utah in 1866, a nine-year-old English immigrant who had crossed the plains largely barefoot and could not yet read.
He taught himself. A blacksmith's apprentice who haunted whatever books he could borrow, Roberts worked his way to the University of Deseret and graduated valedictorian at twenty-one. He became the Restoration's most formidable mind: a General Authority of the Church, a historian whose six-volume Comprehensive History of the Church is still consulted, and a theologian whose The Truth, The Way, The Life attempted the first grand synthesis of Restoration doctrine with the science and philosophy of his day.
Roberts asked hard questions in public — about the Book of Mormon, about doctrine, about history — because he believed the Restoration could bear the weight of honest inquiry. He never had a formal education handed to him, and never treated that as an excuse.
“I am fully aware that in the minds of many, mental laziness is a virtue, and thinking a sin. But that is not my philosophy.”
That is the wager this academy is named for: that serious learning is a form of discipleship, and that it is open to anyone — regardless of schooling, means, or credentials — who is willing to sit down and do the work.
Roberts Academy is part of Restoration Commons, a family of free, independent projects in faithful digital humanities — hosted by All Those in Favor. The Commons projects share a conviction: the Restoration's intellectual life deserves tools built with care.