Two Essays on Sustaining and Enlarging the Doctrine - a podcast by PDF feed of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Abstract: In a pair of recent books, Patrick Mason and Terryl and Fiona Givens seek to revitalize, reinvigorate, and deepen our understanding of basic terms and concepts of the Restoration. I welcome such efforts, convinced (even where I sometimes quibble) that the conversations they will engender among faithful and committed believers can be very healthy. Now that “the times of refreshing [have] come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:18), it is imperative, both for ourselves and for a world that needs to hear the news, that we not lose sight of the radical freshness of the divine gift and of its comprehensively transforming power. My hope for The Interpreter Foundation is that — while joyfully recognizing, indeed celebrating, the fact that prophets and apostles lead the Kingdom, not academics and intellectuals — it will contribute not only to the defense of the Restoration but to the explication of Restoration doctrines and enhanced understanding and appreciation of their riches.





[Page vii]A few weeks ago, the remarkably prolific, learned, and always interesting Latter-day Saint thinkers Terryl and Fiona Givens kindly sent me a copy of a brief new book they had just published. It’s entitled All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation, and Everything in Between.1

I’ve enjoyed it very much. Twice. I’m in deep sympathy with the fundamental project, and I recommend the book enthusiastically. Like Patrick Mason’s soon-to-be published Restoration: God’s Call to the 21st-Century World, which I read in manuscript before it went to press, it is a book that will challenge faithful Latter-day Saint readers in a good and [Page viii]positive way and that deserves to be widely discussed.2 Indeed, in my view, discussing these books would benefit us considerably as a community.

Discussing such matters can be not only beneficial, but truly part of the “sweet work” of the Kingdom. As the prolific English minister and hymnist Isaac Watts (1674–1748) reminds us,



Sweet is the work, my God, my King,To praise thy name, give thanks and sing,To show thy love by morning light,And talk of all thy truths at night.3



We benefit not only because it is genuinely sweet to talk of “poems and prayers and promises and things that we believe in,”4 but because through such conversations we might become better equipped to defend, commend, and build the Kingdom. We might be more effective in sharing the Gospel and serving the Saints and the world in which we live.

Terryl and Fiona see us as being harmed by a kind of disease, and I’m inclined to agree:



We believe that … many … struggling Saints are suffering as a consequence of what scripture calls “the traditions of the fathers, which [are] not correct” (Alma 21:17). … The philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher describes the situation well. He wrote that one can believe and teach that “everything is related to the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth” and yet that redemption can be “interpreted in such a way that it is reduced to incoherence.” His diagnosis is the subject of this book.

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