Restoration Studies/Sunstone Midwest

Today has not been a day of rest for me. I've been on the go since 4:00 this morning. Didn't get to church. :( I was tempted to skip blogging tonight, but I feel I need to do at least that and the sacrament as a minimal effort toward keeping the day holy.

I'd planned to reflect today on the law of consecration, the theme of my last D&C readings, but I'm going to let that go for another occasion. I want to spend at least a couple minutes "debriefing" myself on the joint Restoration Studies/Sunstone Midwest symposium I attended this weekend in Independence, Missouri. The theme was scripture. I was there primarily to read an excerpt from the two-part article on the Book of Mormon historicity debates I wrote last year for Sunstone's Mapping Mormon Issues project, but they also put me on a lunch panel on the topic "What Makes Scripture 'Scripture'?" That was the title of a mini-essay I wrote for Sunstone magazine several years ago (my first Sunstone publication, I think).

For the lunch panel, I gave what turned out to be a rather passionate little speech about my conviction that God communicates to me through the LDS scriptures, whatever their origin, and about my effort to be simultaneously critically discerning and teachable in relation to the canon. What I said seemed to strike chords in the audience, for which I'm grateful: I'd spent a lot of time prepping that brief presentation, and I'd prayed that God would give me words that might be meaningful.

Afterward, the president of one of the fundamentalist RLDS churches that broke away over women's ordination thanked me for my testimony of the Book of Mormon. It was an odd moment, since I surmise this individual and I would actually have very little theological ground in common. (I wondered how he reacted when I came out to the audience during the Q&A that followed my Book of Mormon historicity presentation later in the day.) But we share, evidently, a conviction that God has spoken to us through the Book of Mormon. My impression from the symposium was that Community of Christ is in the middle of trying to decide what to think about the scriptural status of the Bible, much less the Book of Mormon. I knew, of course, that there's a retreat from the Book of Mormon on the part of Community of Christ leadership; but I was surprised, and dismayed, to be told by the church's leading theological consultant that the church takes the position that belief in or use of the Book of Mormon is not a test for fellowship or membership. At the risk of sounding like certain FARMS writers with whom I would not want to be identified—and with the clarification that I agree that attitudes toward the Book of Mormon should not be a "test" for excluding or expelling individuals from church membership—I have to say that a church which is no longer committed collectively to the Book of Mormon as canonical (whatever they may think the book is or means) has developed to a point where I think it's at best uncertain whether they should still be considered part of the larger Latter Day Saint movement.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make before I go to bed is this: When I write this blog, I'm usually imagining LDS readers, and I'm therefore very aware that my approach to a Mormon spirituality is radically liberal by LDS standards. So it was odd to find myself this weekend in a setting where my highly liberal approach to the Book of Mormon made me a kind of reactionary. Being in that position cast in sharp relief, for myself to see, how important the Book of Mormon and other distinctive LDS scriptures are to me.