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cpope9 's review for:
All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation, and Everything in Between
by Fiona Givens, Terryl Givens
A sweeping reenvisioning/correction of key LDS (and Christian) doctrines. This felt borderline heretical throughout my reading and would be sooo beyond actual heresy in any other Christian faith. But, the picture painted and the research and reason behind the proposed theological redefinition feels empowering, loving and more meaningful.
I’m just hesitant to laud this when it feels like such a massive and dramatic departure from essentially all current and historical dogma from essentially any Christian church since the pre-creed years. Though if the author’s reasonably argued and cited ideas are accurate, the strength and impact of the LDS-proposed apostasy really affected and deeply lingered well into modern times.
In the end, modern social science supports the utility and efficacy of this more loving vision of god for worshippers than the entrenched obedience-demanding, legalistic practices and doctrines of the last 1800 years. Whether or not that new interpretation is “true” is definitively an open question. And whether or not that interpretation is clear, depends on how well the reader can get through the authors’ dense academic verbiage (which is notably difficult here).
But a loving, non-condemning, agency-respecting god resonates deeply with many and resolves a handful of other atheistic critiques with the current and classic Christian conceptions of god. So there’s real value in this proposition.
(I think it may also be worth noting that this feels like a book that, if released 50 years ago, would have gotten the authors excommunicated from the LDS church. It’s that fringe…But broadly appealing regardless)
I’m just hesitant to laud this when it feels like such a massive and dramatic departure from essentially all current and historical dogma from essentially any Christian church since the pre-creed years. Though if the author’s reasonably argued and cited ideas are accurate, the strength and impact of the LDS-proposed apostasy really affected and deeply lingered well into modern times.
In the end, modern social science supports the utility and efficacy of this more loving vision of god for worshippers than the entrenched obedience-demanding, legalistic practices and doctrines of the last 1800 years. Whether or not that new interpretation is “true” is definitively an open question. And whether or not that interpretation is clear, depends on how well the reader can get through the authors’ dense academic verbiage (which is notably difficult here).
But a loving, non-condemning, agency-respecting god resonates deeply with many and resolves a handful of other atheistic critiques with the current and classic Christian conceptions of god. So there’s real value in this proposition.
(I think it may also be worth noting that this feels like a book that, if released 50 years ago, would have gotten the authors excommunicated from the LDS church. It’s that fringe…But broadly appealing regardless)