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Does it matter if the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century creation rather
than a translation of an ancient document? Is Christian faith meaningless
if Jesus did not literally rise from the tomb? Do we have to regard Adam
and Eve as real, historical figures? Do scriptural teachings about the
Second Coming or the afterlife describe the future as it actually will
be?
Many Latter-day Saints insist that the answer to these questions must
be yes. Conservatives who maintain that Mormonism is the only religion
authorized to provide access to the blessings of exaltation must, by extension,
insist on the literal reality of the Fall and the Atonement, the Restoration,
and the future resurrection and judgment. In this view, if LDS claims
are not historically true, then the religion is an illusion or a fraud.
This "either/or" perspective is held not only by conservative
Mormons but also by many disillusioned Mormons.
This website testifies that the Spirit can touch lives through Mormon
teachings (as well as through teachings of other faiths) even if those
teachings are not historically true. As it happens, there are liberal
Mormons who believe in the historicity of many LDS claims. Still, the
premise of this website is that the question, "Is Mormonism historically
true?" is unimportant for the purposes of spirituality. For those
purposes, the essential question is: "Does the Spirit speak to me,
and move me to holier living, through Mormonism?" If the answer is
yes, then Mormonism is a spiritual tradition worth committing to. A person
who has committed to Mormon spirituality on those grounds can decide later
what to believe about historicity.
Leonard J. Arrington:
To say that something is a myth is not to say that it was deliberately
fabricated, but to identify it as an account that may or may not
have a determinable basis of fact or natural explanation. Examples
are the Christian story of the Resurrection, the immaculate conception,
and the creation of the world in Genesis. These are ways of explaining
events or truths having religious significance that may be either
symbolical or historical.
To say this another way, one can find philosophical and religious
truths in a Shakespearean tragedy even though the characters and
events are wholly fictional. Examples of novels disclosing religious
truths that I had read during the formative stages of my religious
beliefs include: Pearl Buck, The Good Earth; Knut Hamsun,
Growth of the Soil; William Henry Hudson, Green Mansions;
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov and Crime
and Punishment; and Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina and
War and Peace. And, for that matter, the philosophical
drama in the Old Testament, the Book of Job.
Because of my introduction to the concept of symbolism as a means
of expressing religious truth, I was never overly concerned with
the question of the historicity of the First Vision or of the many
reported epiphanies in Mormon, Christian, and Hebrew history. I
am prepared to accept them as historical or as metaphorical, as
symbolical or as precisely what happened. That they convey religious
truth I have never had any doubt.
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| "Why I
Am a Believer," Sunstone, January 1985, 37 |
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