Grant Hardy at FAIR Mormon Conference 2016

These quotes are second hand, but I hope they’re accurate. Grant Hardy produced the recent “Reader’s Guide” Book of Mormon – the text reformatted and annotated for better understanding. I’ve been impressed by him since freshman year of college.

[Hardy] welcomed the rise of increasing academic discussions of Mormonism. Now, scholars are interested in the Mormon experience. Interest isn’t limited merely to anti-Mormons fighting Mormons. “Sometimes,” he said, “secularism is our friend. It opens things up.”

He distinguished polemics from apologetics. Things aren’t usually black and white. They’re nuanced. We should assume good faith in many questioners and even in a number of critics. We should avoid “unhealthy partisanship.” We should “own up to problems.” We should reject rigid notions of scriptural inerrancy and prophetic infallibility.”

“I believe,” he said, “that the Book of Mormon is a gift from God, and that the testimonies of ancient Nephite prophets are essential for our day.” While saying that a person could have saving faith in an inspired but ahistorical Book of Mormon, he declared his own conviction that, at the judgment bar, he will meet Nephi and Moroni.

Dan Peterson’s Patheos blog has the above summary and, in the comments, this from Grant Hardy:

Just to be clear, I said that I believe that for someone who accepts the Book of Mormon as authoritative scripture and strives to live by its precepts, a faith in the Book of Mormon as inspired fiction can be a “saving faith,” that is, faith sufficient to enter into the Celestial Kingdom. I think the idea of a nonhistorical Book of Mormon is incorrect, yet in the end, our relationship to Christ and the Church, and the way that we treat others, will be more determinative of our eternal destiny than our opinions about Book of Mormon geography, historicity, and any number of other controversial issues. And I suggested that everyone will be surprised at the Judgment Day by something or other, including me.

The more traditional apologists, it seems, want to just say, “We won’t drive these people from the church.” Gee, thanks. Hardy, Bushman, etc., say, “You’re still one of us, Sister.”