Looking for an article about the Christianity of LDS

He noted that as literature, it was very boring, nevertheless, he couldn’t ignore the fact that it so strongly testified of Christ.

A good exercise is to highlight every reference to Jesus in the BoM.

Not just “Jesus”, “Christ”, “Savior” and “Messiah”, the obvious ones, but also “Holy One of Israel” and so on.

Flicking through a BoM where this has been done (and I’ve done it myself), you can’t ignore how Christological it actually is.

Thanks, DevilsAdvocate, that’s the article I am looking for. It is an amazing article. I’m astounded by his insights.

I think informed outsiders sometimes have some truly astonishing things uniquely Mormonism. We can’t see them because we are like fish who are the last to discover water.

I also like the idea of highlighting every reference to Jesus Christ, and all other names for him in the Book of Mormon. Thanks again everyone for helping me find this article

why does it take a non-member to remind us of why we stayLDS?

Because a non-member can admire “pure Mormonism” from afar without having to work in the trenches amid the tension between the ideal and the real.

He can be the observer; we are the farmers – working in the mud and the muck and the manure trying to grow something beautiful and sweet. We need the observers, but we need the farmers just as much, if not more. Without the farmers, the observers would have nothing to observe.

I also loved the focus on “pure Mormonism” in this article. Yes, it gets messy in the trenches, when “The Church” (the collective “We actually are”, at the most fundamental level) doesn’t match the ideal for which we long – but the underlying grandeur and mind-blowing expansiveness of the core, pure theology shines through our pitiful attempts to understand and live it when the light hits the diamonds just right, so to speak. Even after all these years, I stil get blinded by the light when I step back a bit and let it shine.

To change analogies, it’s even more brilliant when the full orchestral sound washes around me and penetrates my soul (body and spirit combined) – when I experience those momenst of communal harmony that make my heart-strings hum and vibrate in tune with it all.

I wish so badly that the entire Church was like that – even if only somewhat regularly. I wish each ward and branch and stake had those moments on a somewhat regular basis – when Zion emerges and flows inward and outward – when the concept and the principle of the City of Enoch (another grand allegory and symbol, imo) comes into focus a bit more clearly and I actually can understand what it might be like to be caught up into heaven with people I love and who love me. I know it’s not like that fully, even in my own ward that really is wonderful in so many ways – and I understand why others get disheartened when they never experience it week after soul-numbing week – but I’ve seen it and I can see it and I know it’s possible and “pure Mormonism” is why I have seen it and can see it and know it’s possible.

Thanks, again, for the reminder of this article. It’s been good to read it again and feel again what I just wrote.

I think Professor Webb’s article is a good example of observing (as Ray puts it), and looking for the good in what you observe, while still having an opinion or disbelief about it. What I like is it is focusing on what he finds he likes in Mormonism, not what he thinks is “exotic and abnormal”. He suggests Mormons are not anti-Christian. But I think he still can’t hide his condescension, suggesting Gnostics are on one extreme, and Mormons on the other…as if both are equally dangerous options to consider.

It isn’t like the guy is converting to Mormonism and accepting it all and getting baptized in the Church…he isn’t accepting it and getting involved in the farming…he is just observing and reminding Christians there is good stuff in Mormonism and Christians don’t need to fear it, or they will remain ignorant to it.

why does it take a non-member to remind us of why we stayLDS?

I think the answer is because the members have the same kind of arguments against other religions that this professor is writing about towards Christians. In the Church, you don’t find articles written about how beautiful Buddhism is, or how valuable atheist logical reasoning can be to us as members, but members still focus on the superiority of Mormonism to any other way. So it takes an outsider to remind us, we can benefit from study and admiration of other schools of thought, Christian to Mormon, or Mormon to anything else. We don’t need to fear what we don’t know.