Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Mormons Can View Things Differently - Even Things as Important as the Book of Mormon

Elder Holland, 2007, PBS interview for 'The Mormons':


PBS: [You say] there are stark choices in beliefs about the origins of the book. Explain why there's no middle way.

Elder Holland: ... If someone can find something in the Book of Mormon, anything that they love or respond to or find dear, I applaud that and say more power to you. That's what I find, too. And that should not in any way discount somebody's liking a passage here or a passage there or the whole idea of the book, but not agreeing to its origin, its divinity. ...

I think you'd be as aware as I am that that we have many people who are members of the church who do not have some burning conviction as to its origins, who have some other feeling about it that is not as committed to foundational statements and the premises of Mormonism. But we're not going to invite somebody out of the church over that any more than we would anything else about degrees of belief or steps of hope or steps of conviction. ... We would say: "This is the way I see it, and this is the faith I have; this is the foundation on which I'm going forward. If I can help you work toward that I'd be glad to, but I don't love you less; I don't distance you more; I don't say you're unacceptable to me as a person or even as a Latter-day Saint if you can't make that step or move to the beat of that drum."

2 comments:

Dave said...

Yes, one of my favorite comments. I wish he would repeat it at General Conference.

Anonymous said...

Wow, never heard that. It may have saved my daughter's testimony had she done so. Sigh.