Mormon Redeeming Grace (Volume 1)

Although I have made some editorial refinements and certain formatting modifications, what follows materially conforms to the original content.

The majority of these posts—critiques, responses, rants—apply the canonical standards set forth in the book Redeeming Grace in the Canon of the Restoration (Amazon CreateSpace and Kindle 2011) to the doctrines of atonement and grace in selected addresses and articles by prominent Latter-day Saints.

The remainder—essays, thoughts, explanations of one kind or another—examine these important doctrines.

I argue that there is a pervasive yet unperceived significant discrepancy between the doctrines of atonement and grace in the canon of the Restoration and the mainstream teaching, expounding, and explanation of these doctrines (what I term Mormonspeak) from the pulpit of the Restoration.

In other words, the canon and the pulpit are at odds with one another and have been locked in an unacknowledged battle royal for at least the last 40 years, if not longer.

What is remarkable is that no one seems to notice.

I do.

This book begins to document the particulars of the peculiar, unwarranted, and disconcerting struggle between canon and pulpit in the restored church of Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These conspicuous missteps are everywhere, but the moment that we Latter-day Saints begin to see them, they will start to diminish, and then they will disappear altogether, for no one will want to say or write anything that is utterly contrary to the properly understood doctrines of atonement and grace in the canon of the Restoration.

What should come as no surprise to anyone is the fact that the canon, the best of the best, will ultimately prevail over the errors from the pulpit.

One day the true doctrines of atonement and grace will overcome the deleterious, injurious, and extensive errors of legalism.

In that blessed day, I hope that no one is disappointed.