Thursday, May 8, 2014

What it's all about


If The Book of Mormon was written for these latter days, why does its content seem so tightly focused on Joseph Smith's day? The whole thing is essentially a series of Second Great Awakening style sermons strung together in a narrative based on the answer to the question "who are the indigenous Americans?" In addition to the religious concerns of the early 19th century and the curiosities surrounding the First Nations people, we have a number of other very culturally specific topics of concern such as the preoccupation with avoiding a king as a ruler and opting instead for self-governance, declaring independence, war as a means of obtaining freedom, frontier justice, colonization, suspicion of secret societies like the Freemasons, and treasure seeking.


What does The Book of Mormon contain that addresses our current concerns about racism, LGBTQ rights, gender equality, abortion, proper taxation, etc. with the same perspective and precision? One might be prone to say that The Book of Mormon was written in Joseph's day for himself, and not thousands of years ago for us and our posterity. Unless you're one of these folks and have an awesome ability to make shit up.

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