I bought this book last week from the author, who gave a workshop I attended as part of a missions week in Hamilton. Overall, I appreciated the rigorous level of scholarship, presented along with a heart for the gospel and for Mormons. As critical as this book is of the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, it does not portray Mormons as any kind of enemy to Christians. To the contrary, it evokes a great deal of sympathy for them, and a desire to dialogue on some of the relevant topics.
Unfortunately, there are many type-o’s and errors that more careful editing would have prevented. If I were a devout Mormon taking the time to read and be challenged by this book, I would find the type-o’s very frustrating.
The author does not attempt to give a complete overview of Mormon beliefs or practices, but rather focuses on some of the hot points of criticism toward them. The points discussed are as follows:
- The importance to Mormons of Joseph Smith’s first vision, vs. the evidence against that vision.
- The evidence that Joseph Smith was immoral in his treasure-hunting business.
- The evidence that Joseph Smith was immoral in his adultery and polygamy.
- The rise of the authority of the prophets.
- The questionability of the book of Mormon, the Doctrine of Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price as scripture.
- The debacle of the “Book of Abraham,” which Smith claimed to have translated from Egyptian, but which Egyptologists are convinced did not come from the papyri Smith acquired at all.
- Divergences between biblically-based theology (of God, Jesus, humankind, etc.) on the one hand and particular doctrines that Mormons teach on the other hand.
- Issues surrounding Temple practices.
- Issues surrounding the racist exclusion of blacks from the priesthood until the 1970’s.
- Etc.
As engaging as this material is, I’m left scratching my head about how to discuss it with Mormon acquaintances. I’ve come to realize that rigorous historical and linguistic scholarship is not at the heart of Mormonism, but rather a simple heartfelt conviction that Mormonism is true. (“I just feel it in my heart,” a Mormon missionary once told me, with a tear of sincerity and conviction in his eye.) I’m not sure where to go from there: whether to push a Mormon to inspect evidence and to study the Bible in more detail (they don’t study the Greek and Hebrew, it seems), or whether to take a softer approach. While the author does not aim to address that question, he does point me to another book that does, which I should pick up sometime in the not-so-distant future: Talking With Mormons by Mouw (Eerdmans, 2012).