Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration, by Robert A. Rees, offers a moving and thoughtful vision of what a progressive-yet-faithful Latter-day Saint discipleship can look like. Rees—a poet, scholar, and former editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought—draws on a lifetime of devotion and intellectual engagement to explore themes such as Heavenly Mother, the recovery of Christ-centered worship during Holy Week, environmental stewardship, and the creation of midrashic literature about women in scripture and Church history. His prose is interwoven with poetry and literary reflection, making the book as much an artistic meditation as a theological one. Collectively, it serves as a manifesto for a future Church that is inclusive, Christocentric, and animated by ongoing revelation.

Rees is hardly a newcomer to these conversations. Over decades, he has established himself as a gentle but persistent advocate for a more expansive and compassionate Mormonism—one that is willing to imagine new possibilities while remaining rooted in core doctrines. In this sense, Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration is both a culmination of his thought and an invitation to see the Restoration itself as a living, ongoing process rather than a closed historical event.

The range of topics covered is striking. His treatment of Heavenly Mother exemplifies the way he combines reverence with courage: he does not attempt to pin down doctrine prematurely, but he insists that our theology is incomplete without a more robust recognition of the divine feminine. Rather than providing a more robust theology of Hevenly Mother himself, he points to work that has already been done by members of the Church and encourages more. His plea for greater emphasis on Holy Week similarly pushes Latter-day Saints toward a deeper Christocentrism, reminding readers that the Restoration was never meant to eclipse the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus but to draw us closer to Him. The chapter on environmental stewardship situates Latter-day Saints within global Christian “creation care” movements, urging members to see earth-care as an essential dimension of discipleship rather than a peripheral concern.

Perhaps most compelling is his call for a Mormon midrashic tradition, modeled after Jewish practices of reimagining scripture through creative narrative. Rees not only outlines the potential of this approach but provides two powerful examples: a reworking of the prodigal son parable through the eyes of a mother and two daughters, and a lyrical expansion of Abish’s story in the Book of Mormon. These midrashim do more than fill narrative gaps; they expand our imagining of women’s voices in sacred texts in ways that honor both imagination and faith.

While I tend to be cautious toward projects aimed at “reforming” the Church, I found myself resonating with many of Rees’s proposals for development and renewal. That reaction likely reflects my own position as a moderately liberal Latter-day Saint in the United States as much as it does the persuasiveness of the book itself. Still, I suspect its reception will be shaped by the polarization within today’s Church: conservative readers will likely dismiss it as yet another progressive call for change, while liberal readers will embrace it eagerly. Yet even for those who disagree, the book remains valuable as a window into the hopes, commitments, and theological imagination of progressive Latter-day Saints.

In the end, Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration is less a blueprint than a vision—a hopeful sketch of what the Church could become if it drew more deeply on its own resources of revelation, inclusivity, and imagination. Rees empowers ordinary members to see themselves as participants in an unfinished Restoration, capable of contributing creative gifts that help the Church realize its divine potential. Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, the book models the kind of hopeful, generous imagination that the Restoration has invited.

For more book reviews and forthcoming books, see Mormon Studies Books in 2025