{"id":35267,"date":"2016-05-31T04:00:53","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T09:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=35267"},"modified":"2016-05-15T19:30:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T00:30:15","slug":"reading-nephi-1338-41","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2016\/05\/reading-nephi-1338-41\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Nephi – 13:38-41"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"068-068-the-liahona-full\"<\/a>Theses passages are tremendously challenging. On the one hand they insist on the historical nature of their prophecies\u2014an understanding of history and of God\u2019s movement in history is their whole raison d\u2019etre<\/em>. But even retrospectively it\u2019s difficult to get much traction, to pin down events or movements or historical happenings, or to see these passages as illuminating particular events. Nephi\u2019s mind was clearly riveted on his posterity and that of his \u201cbrethren.\u201d Without any precise means of identifying who these descendants are or what events related to them these passages might signify, my own mind wants to run away into more universalizing generalities (as opposed to Nephi\u2019s familial particularities).<\/p>\n

I note that it\u2019s the Gentile\u2019s taking of the Book and the other books <\/em>to the remnant of the Lehites that allows a conversion of both <\/em>peoples. I imagine our quads traveling through the Guatemalan highlands, converting native families of the region as well as the missionaries whose native language skills are even worse than their broken Spanish. Our proselytory practices lead to the conversion in multiple senses. And throwing the Jews into the mix, I think of my old friend Adi who was the son of an Israeli diplomat living in Guatemala when he began sneaking out of his window in order to meet with the missionaries.<\/p>\n

But moving away from such specifics, perhaps it\u2019s not conversions of any particular group, but a more general impact or influence or meaning that our Restoration Scriptures bear\u2014a witnessing to the world of certain truths\u2014in particular the identity and role of the Messiah. How should we read the \u201cmaking known\u201d that these scriptures offer to the world? Perhaps it\u2019s not conversion, but a mere understanding. Will our Scripture reach the point of general cultural knowledge (with the help not just of our missionaries and congregations but also via scholars and neighbors and Broadway satires) in such a way that whatever else is known, people generally understand our Books as a testament of Jesus Christ? Can we hope for an even more nuanced common understanding of who we think Jesus Christ actually is?<\/p>\n

One of the key functions of the Books being prophesied here is that they will make known that which is plain and precious, but which was lost. Just what is it in Restoration scripture that restores that which is plain and precious? I want to think that it must be unique aspects of Mormonism. Depending on how we interpret the reference of these other<\/em> books (the Doctrine & Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price; others?), I imagine it\u2019s our orthopraxy and temple worship and views on the unity and divine origins and destiny of humanity, together with our notion that it\u2019s the same sociality existing here and there that imparts meaning to the afterlife (and this one). These are the sorts of candidates that strike me as plausible\u2014things that have been lost from important elements of the monotheistic tradition, and even more from Western culture writ large. Things that our Books restore.<\/p>\n

But the text focuses not on such particularities but on Messianism. What is it about Restoration Messianism that is unique or restorative? Nothing in this passage seems to offer a hint. In fact, it\u2019s extraordinarily difficult not to hear in these verses the same tone and themes as our contemporary sacrament meetings: mere American evangelicalism dressed up a bit with divine history. Is there more that we as Latter-day Saints are offering up with regard to the Messiah that is plain and precious?<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s it right there: our communalism, our peoplism<\/em>, our notion that the atonement is not <\/em>simply about God and individuals, but about God and peoples, about covenant. The Anointed One came to fulfill the terms of a Divine Covenant that not only brings individuals salvation but does so by constituting those who believe in such a way that the posterity of Eve and Adam down to the last child can be sealed together in eternally efficacious bonds and fill the measure of our collective creation. Here is something plain and precious and something that does seem to have been taken out of much of Western Christianity. And it is something that comes not just with our Book of Mormon, but with that book married to our other Books.<\/p>\n

Even so, I worry that we\u2019re not winning that cultural battle. Far from convincing the world that this is a central aspect of the atonement, I fear we fail to understand this truth ourselves. Whether sitting in Sunday School or wrangling over issues on the Bloggernacle, despite the broad spectrum of visions articulated, most Mormons appear bent on making Mormonism a legitimate Twenty-first Century Church\u2014rather than a pan-dispensational manifestation of God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theses passages are tremendously challenging. On the one hand they insist on the historical nature of their prophecies\u2014an understanding of history and of God\u2019s movement in history is their whole raison d\u2019etre. But even retrospectively it\u2019s difficult to get much traction, to pin down events or movements or historical happenings, or to see these passages as illuminating particular events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":34019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/068-068-the-liahona-full1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35269,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35267\/revisions\/35269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}