[3] After serving as a captain in the U.S. Air Force, England entered graduate school at Stanford University, where he was influenced by both the 1960s-era campus movement and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an active member and a leader in his student ward.

Leaving Stanford, England taught at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, while completing work on his Ph.D., awarded in 1974.

During his years at BYU England was at his most prolific, writing books of essays such as Dialogues with Myself and "Why the Church Is as True as the Gospel,"[5] poetry, a biography and numerous articles.

In 1981 England received a letter from McConkie in response, chastising him for publicly advocating the view that God continues to learn new things.

[6] According to historian Claudia Bushman, "the McConkie-England disagreement revealed the division between theological conservatives and liberals within the believing camp and, in a larger sense, the tensions between authoritarian control versus free expression.