Book "Planted"

I’ve seen some Facebook posts about some launch events. It does look good – I’m all for a grown-up conversation among grown-ups.

DEC FROM GUEST | 28 DEC 2015

This guest post is by Patrick Q. Mason, the Howard W. Hunter Chair in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. His book Planted is the newest addition to the Maxwell Institute’s Living Faith series.

I believe deeply in Paul’s metaphor of the body of Christ, with each part equally necessary to the functioning of the whole. I believe that the diversity of gifts in our human and church families is a blessing to draw strength from rather than a curse to be weeded out. I wanted to write a book that could speak to (and with) the whole body of Christ, not just one segment of it. I see the Restoration fundamentally as a project of bringing healing to a broken and fractured world (thanks to fellow scholar Phil Barlow for this insight). I wanted to offer whatever words I could to capture and promote that spirit of reconciliation, and indeed atonement, that I believe is at the heart of the gospel.

Importantly, I intend Planted to be part of a grown-up conversation among grown-ups in what I hope is a grown-up religion. Perhaps more than anything I fear the juvenilization of Mormonism in which our religious knowledge and understanding often seems to be trapped somewhere between early morning seminary and EFY (however wonderful those things are—when you’re a teenager). I don’t believe that I learned everything I need to know in Primary or even in priests’ quorum. We build on childhood foundations in our secular knowledge but then move on to more mature and nuanced thought processes and models as we encounter a more complex world in our adult years. By the same logic, our religion should grow up with us. How we read scriptures when we are seven should change by the time we are seventeen, then again by the time we are forty-seven or seventy-seven. The same is true of how we think about prophets, or church history, or any number of other gospel topics. The principles of simple addition are no less true once we learn calculus—but you can’t build bridges or fly to the moon with grade school arithmetic.

Adults can and should be sensitive about the proper time and place to have certain conversations. But just because a particular conversation perhaps shouldn’t occur in missionary discussions or even Gospel Doctrine class doesn’t mean it shouldn’t occur at all. Planted is my small attempt to foster more conversation within Mormonism. You might disagree with some of the points I make. Terrific! Let’s talk about it, with all the faith, generosity, learning, humility, and charity we can muster.

A review was just released today at http://rationalfaiths.com/book-review-planted-by-patrick-mason/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://rationalfaiths.com/book-review-planted-by-patrick-mason/

It makes me a little less excited to read this myself and sounds like it may be more something to give to my bishop and SP.

I will still read it and bring my $0.01 or $0.02 on the subject.