I am now officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! Check out how I have mastered the proper hyphenation and capitalization of the official name of my Church. Behold, it beginneth to be delicious to me.
So I decided to fire up this blog. Years ago, before I became a member of the Church, I started up a Mormon-themed blog as an outlet for my fascination with all things LDS. Suffice it to say that now, as a member, I have plenty of outlets. I have home teaching assignments, a calling, family history research to do, the whole ball of wax!
Frankly, I feel like I have a pretty lame testimony. My most common responses when non-members ask me why I joined the Church are:
1. I reached a point in my life when I felt that it was better to be a member than to not be a member.
2. The flood is coming and it's time to get on the ark.
3. I want to be good -- not just good, but someone who has a sincere desire to be good and no desire at all to be evil -- and Mormons seem like the best people to hang with to help me move in this direction.
4. I'm not sure.
I have to tell you, dear readers, that it was not the Book of Mormon that got me into the Church. I truly love the Book of Mormon, but it's a peculiar love, sort of like the love that people develop for especially quirky or weird friends and relatives. You don't necessarily want to live under the same roof with them, but whenever you do see them, it's like experiencing a breath of fresh air, a tasty snack, and a few laughs all at once.
The fact is that the Book of Mormon was not always the Big Enchilada of missionary work the way it has been for the past thirty years or so. If President Benson is to be believed, and why wouldn't he be, we Mormons have only until very recently paid very much attention at all to the Book of Mormon. This neglect, it seems, goes all the way back to the earliest days of the Church.
I asked Sister Kane, a very witty and brilliant missionary, how many of her investigators actually ever read the Book of Mormon all the way through. Her immediate answer was, "The ones who got baptized."
And I believe this. However, when you really get to know the Book of Mormon, there are a few things you come to realize about it that can be surprising, amusing, disconcerting, or puzzling, depending on where you are coming from.
First of all is how much of it is filler. Seriously. Like "junk DNA" -- if it serves any purpose at all, we haven't yet figured it out.
Second, is how much of it is unintentionally (or intentionally) funny. For example, objects of "curious workmanship" abound in the the Book of Mormon. And who creates these objects of curious workmanship? Why, curious workmen, of course! And only in the Book of Mormon will you be told that in the umpteenth year of the reign of the judges, well, nothing much at all happened. This is related to the basic principle that when one is short on ore (with which to create more plates), it's important to get as many of these non-eventful years covered in your history as possible.
Third, there's the fact that Jesus is both the Father AND the Son. I'm not going to delve into this at all, it's beyond me. But there it is. I used to think that the Book of Mormon was trinitarian, but no -- it's something else entirely, some theological beast from 20,000 fathoms, a fearsome creature spawned by a mixing together of elements that should never, in the natural course of things, be mixed together.
Fourth, there's Third Nephi, Chapter Eight, in which Jesus goes all Armageddon on the Nephites in a big way. Not exactly a meek-and-mild type guy we have here.
But if one takes the Book of Mormon seriously -- and I do -- then one has to face the challenge of fitting all of this into one's spiritual worldview.
So I'm taking this new blog forward. I'm not sure what I'll be doing with it, but I'll think of something.
No comments:
Post a Comment