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<\/a>For many years now, my wife and I have belonged to a monthly reading group, the rarely used but genuine formal title of which is The Gadianton Polysophical Marching and Chowder Society. \u00a0I led our discussion this past Sunday evening, on Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration<\/em><\/a>, by Robert A. Rees<\/a>. \u00a0My wife and I chose the book for this month\u2019s discussion. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Because, for one thing, it\u2019s thought-provoking and very discussable. \u00a0Bob Rees is definitely located to the left of me, both politically and theologically, but he is a faithful, devoted, and thoughtful Latter-day Saint, and I find his writing a valuable challenge to my points of view.<\/p>\n I share a few general passages from it. \u00a0Perhaps, at some point in the future, I\u2019ll come back to specific issues that he raises. \u00a0Here, first, is a powerful statement from the Prophet Joseph Smith:<\/p>\n \u201cThy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity\u2014thou must commune with God.\u201d (cited at 10)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I\u2019m not sure what to make of the statement that Bob Rees cites from Harold Bloom. \u00a0I wonder what Bloom expected, and I wonder whether a Jewish agnostic is well positioned to fully evaluate the fruits of the Restoration. \u00a0Still, his perspective is interesting and worthwhile. and I think that his critique can serve as a goad, an impetus for good things. \u00a0And I\u2019ve long loved the challenging quotation from B. H. Roberts:<\/p>\n According to Harold Bloom, former distinguished professor of religion and humanities at New York and Yale Universities, Joseph Smith \u201cwas an authentic religious genius and surpassed all Americans, before or since, in the possession and expression of the religion-making imagination. . . . There had to be an immense power of the myth-making imagination at work to sustain so astonishing an innovation\u201d as the Restoration. . . .<\/p>\n According to Bloom, Smith did not live to see the full flowering of his visionary imagination. What is more, Bloom does not believe Smith\u2019s modern and contemporary followers have completely fulfilled or continued the promise and possibilities of the Prophet\u2019s religion-making imagination. No less an authority than B. H. Roberts came to the same conclusion at the end of the nineteenth century. Roberts distinguished between what he calls \u201cdisciples pure and simple . . . whose whole intellectual life . . . consists of their partisanship . . . and mere repetition\u201d of religious formulas and those disciples who \u201cbring to the new teaching, from the first, their own personal contribution . . . [and] help lead the thought that they accept to a truer expression. They force it beyond its earlier and cruder stages of development.\u201d Note Roberts\u2019s use of the word \u201cforce,\u201d by which, in this context, I think he intended \u201c[ to] bring about by unusual effort.\u201d \u00a0Roberts added (and this is the part of his essay most relevant to reimagining the Restoration) that Mormonism<\/a> \u201ccalls for thoughtful [and I believe he also intended imaginative] disciples who will not be content with merely repeating some of its truths, but will develop its truths; and enlarge . . . [Mormonism] by that development.\u201d Then he states this astonishing idea: \u201cNot half\u2014not one-hundredth part\u2014not a thousandth part of that which Joseph Smith revealed to the Church has yet been unfolded, either to the Church or to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Pause a minute to consider the profound implications of such a statement. Most Latter-day Saints would readily agree that the truths revealed to the Prophet have yet to be unfolded to the world but would likely have difficulty agreeing with Roberts that they have not been unfolded in their fullness to the Church. I contend that his statement should excite our imaginations rather than provoke our doubts, because they encourage our active participation in that very unfolding. Roberts continues, \u201cThe work of the expounder has scarcely begun. The Prophet planted by teaching the germ-truths of the great dispensation of the fullness of times. The watering and the weeding [are] going on, and God is giving the increase, and will give it more abundantly in the future as more intelligent [and, one might add, more imaginative] discipleship shall obtain.\u201d Roberts adds, God \u201cwill give it more abundantly in the future.\u201d 8 To some extent our present is a partial fulfillment of that \u201cmore abundant future,\u201d but we are also charged with extending the Prophet\u2019s vision of the Restoration into an even grander, more abundant future. What Roberts emphasizes, I believe, is that Mormonism\u2019s future requires not a passive waiting for God to reveal those things yet to be revealed, but an active, energetic, imaginative seeking and working for their unfolding. He concludes,<\/p>\n \u201cThe disciples of \u201cMormonism\u201d [which includes contemporary Latter-day Saints], growing discontented with the necessarily primitive methods which have hitherto prevailed in sustaining the doctrine, will yet take profounder and broader views of the great doctrines committed to the Church; and, departing from mere repetition, will cast them in new formulas; cooperating in the works of the Spirit, until they help to give to the truths received a more forceful expression and carry it beyond the earlier and cruder stages of its development.\u201d (16-18)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cI have always been struck,\u201d writes Brother Rees, \u201cby the fact that the Lord refers to His church as both \u201ctrue and living\u201d (216).<\/p>\n While I believe all that God has revealed, I am not quite sure that I understand what he has revealed, and the fact that he has promised further revelation is to me a challenge to keep an open mind and be prepared to follow wherever my search for truth may lead. (215)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n On page 202, he cites two more of my favorite statements from the Prophet Joseph:<\/p>\n\n
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