This is part of the DR Book Collection.
Over at Worlds Without End, I’ve written a review of Mormon philosopher Adam Miller’s new book Future Mormon: Essays in Mormon Theology. Those interested in a larger engagement should check it out, but as I describe it there, Miller’s book is an attempt at “a future tense apologetics” that models “a thoughtful and creative engagement with Mormon ideas while sketching, without obligation, possible directions for future thinking” (pg. xii). If future Mormons are anything like what I read here, then they will (compared to my experience with the average present-day Mormon):
- Place grace at the center of the gospel where it belongs.
- Take the materialist metaphysics of Mormonism seriously.
- Be more aware of the implications of their unique and/or innovative doctrines.
- Find the sacred in the mundane and embodied.
- Take a more holistic, almost cosmic view of Mormonism.
- Read the scriptures carefully and recognize the people within them as people, warts and all.
Whether you agree with everything (or anything) in Future Mormon is beside the point. Miller wants you to wrestle with these ideas. The book is meant to start conversations, get the mental wheels turning, and transform the reader into a theologian. In it, he helps lay the foundation for a more thoughtful, earthy, and creative Mormonism; all while extending his hand to readers as an invitation to join him in the process. At least in my case, his hope of inspiring “a thoughtful and creative engagement with Mormon ideas” has not been in vain. And when you pick up Future Mormon and reflect on its pages, I think you’ll find your case to be similar.
You can hear an interview with Adam Miller on Greg Kofford Books’ Authorcast here.
There is a great problem in the Church: it is that most LDS cannot or will not choose to process the meaning of such sentences as “Take the materialist metaphysics of Mormonism seriously” and the other characteristics of future Mormons that you describe. Unfortunately most people are born into the Church, and that means that LDS include people with widely varying levels of intelligence and education and conversion. Will the Church eventually consist mostly of the elite members who can process such ideas and act on them? Will the rest be expected to sit quietly or leave, disappointed, disillusioned and, way too often, angry?