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Patrick Mason holds the Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University. He is the author of multiple books, including Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt and Restoration: God’s Call to the 21st-Century World. He and his wife Melissa have four children and live in Logan, Utah, where he currently serves as ward Sunday School president.
Highlights
5:30 What led him to write the book Restoration 8:00 Change and restoration on every level 9:35 God is more interested in restoring His people than in restoring “things”; everything else is a means to the end of restoring His children to wholeness 16:00 Encouraging leaders to join in the Restoration without stepping outside the lines: there is room for creativity and engagement 19:30 Joseph Smith never used the terms “restored church” or “restored gospel”; the word restoration referred to the house of Israel and bringing marginalized people back into wholeness in the embrace of the love of God 23:50 As leaders we need to consider what it is about what we are doing that will bring people wholeness; WHY do we do these things that we do? 26:00 Relativism and exclusivism
- Exclusivism: if one thing is true then something different cannot be true
- Relativism: different paths up the mountain
- Particularism: God gives specific gifts to all people; what is God doing among the rest of His children?
32:10 The scriptures also point outside of themselves: seek wisdom out of the best books and the Spirit will help you discern what is true 35:30 Brigham Young quote: “It is now our duty and calling to gather up every item of truth.” 37:30 Having a lay leadership leads to diversity within the Church; bring the best of who you are and apply it to the Restoration 39:55 We have been a church addicted to growth; maybe our calling is to have a transformative effect, not a dominating effect 42:50 History is different than the present and part of the Restoration is to recognize what is being restored today; complacency holds us back and recognizing our baggage and changing it is part of our collective repentance process so that we can move forward 47:50 The burden of local leaders is localized and they can lean into the inspiration for their local congregation’s struggles 51:30 Wards are outwardly homogenous: share your struggles and ask how you can do better; there are a lot of needs outside the ward boundaries as well 54:20 Start with our responsibility to teach the doctrine then listen and learn from one another 56:00 The world doesn’t offer a place like this to love and learn together that we have within our church organizations 57:30 Cultural colonialism: separate the culture from the doctrine, and empower people to bring their gifts 1:02:15 Fundamentalism: rigidity, intolerance, condescension; the opposite of gentle, open, humility 1:07:50 Keep the focus on the individual, not a set of ideas 1:08:30 Catching the vision of the Restoration
Links
Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt Restoration: God’s Call to the 21st Century World Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast . Note: This transcript was machine-produced. We would be grateful for help correcting errors. You can help! Simply copy/paste the transcript text into a document, make the corrections, and then copy/paste the corrected text into a comment on the page (below) and we will get the corrected text published!
This podcast is another one that breaks the “veil of familiarity” of what we thought we knew.
1. How can we, as a small number of disciples, accomplish all the prophecies of the last days? We can’t. God uses His followers on both sides of the veil. God uses people throughout the world to accomplish His work. Why do we limit God on how he will accomplish His work?
2. A lot of prophesy will be fulfilled after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ; but it is too common to think that everything must happen beforehand, including a perfect “Zion.” In our day, we tend to think of actual “cities” rather than people.
3. Divine knowledge is given liberally to those who ask of God. It is not exclusive to Church members. We should recognize and welcome it from whomever it comes.
4. The Culture of Christ overrides all other manmade cultures in the world. All the speakers at General Conference from countries outside the U.S. did not speak of their country’s culture, their ethnic culture, their skin color culture. They taught the “culture” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that will unify us all.
5. Cultural colonialism is not unique to the Church. It has been going on for millennia for anyone that ventures outside their tiny group. We just need to be conscious of teaching the doctrine. “The Answer is the Doctrine”
6. Great discussion on “restoration” with reference to people, individuals. Covenants are made between an individual and God. The strength of the Church is in the personal testimony of individuals and their individually living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Most of the disciples of Jesus Christ in mortality did not have a “Church” formed as an organization to which they belonged. It was families and
individuals with divine authority. Each of us is seeking to be restored to the presence of our Heavenly Father as a complete and healed individual.
None of this is new. But traditions have obscured the truth.