As a scholar of religions worldwide, Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye believed in a global vision of Zion — “And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them” (Moses 7:18).
This was the topic of a lecture she gave at Brigham Young University’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship in 2019.
“What I see the Church offering me is the opportunity to learn to follow Christ and participate in the redeeming processes of error, repentance and growth, by engaging with my sisters and brothers in the gospel. It is the opportunity to think globally and act locally, to think locally and act globally,” she said.
“These networks of human bonds and collective action are as close at hand as my own home and neighborhood and as far flung as the entire world. That is cool. We, the Latter-day Saints, are weird and small enough to really try to be sister and brother to each other, in our diverse and often contradictory circumstances around the world.”
Inouye, scholar, historian, writer, essayist, wife, mother and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died following a seven-year battle with cancer on Tuesday, April 23. She was 44.
Her husband, Joseph McMullin, wrote in a social media post that she “slipped peacefully away” as he held her in his arms and her brother held her hand.
“I cannot describe how huge of a blow this is to me and to her family. However, we are extremely grateful for the massive outpouring of love and support that has been expressed,” McMullin wrote. “Words are wholly inadequate to describe how much this has touched me.”
Spencer McBride, a fellow historian in the Church History Department, said Inouye’s legacy will live on “for decades to come.”
“Melissa Inouye brought a unique and vital set of experiences to the study of Church history,” he said. “She dedicated tremendous time and energy to telling the stories of Latter-day Saints around the world, insisting that a global perspective is essential to fully understanding the history and influence of the Church. We will feel her impact on the field of church history for decades to come.”
Family, career and faith
Inouye was born into an Asian-American family — her mother’s family is Chinese and her father’s family is Japanese — and she was raised in Costa Mesa, California.
Inouye served a Latter-day Saint mission in Taiwan. She met her future husband, McMullin, who also served in Taiwan, in the Missionary Training Center. They are the parents of four children with botanical nicknames: Bean, Sprout, Leaf and Shoot.
She graduated from Harvard University with a degree in East Asian studies in 2003 and went on to complete a doctorate in East Asian languages and civilization in 2011. She taught in Hong Kong and was a senior lecturer in Asian studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
The marathon-running mother began working for the Church History Department after her family moved to Utah in 2019.
Inouye will also be remembered for helping to create the Global Mormon Studies research network and her service as an advisory board member of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University.
She studied the history of Chinese Christianity, global religious movements, women and religion and wrote extensively on such topics. She was an author and a featured speaker at numerous events, lectures and podcasts.
Inouye was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 37 in 2017. Battling cancer motivated her to write about her experiences, she said in a 2019 media interview.
Her final years were marked with faith in Jesus Christ and endurance, Rosalynde Welch wrote in a tribute.
“She fought with extraordinary courage to continue living for her family and for her community and for her sheer joy in creation,” Welch wrote. “Her suffering did not diminish her delight in children, in nature, in good company and in Chinese street food. But it did give her a profound understanding of all those who labor under the many forms of pain and grief that mark this world. She found solace in her suffering from the truths of the restored gospel and its teachings that, through Christ, our sorrow may be redeemed and consecrated for the common good. Her life demonstrated that miraculous transformation.”
