In a letter to his cousin Willard Richards, the future Mormon leader Brigham Young once mocked the idea of a "sectarian God, without Body parts or passion, his center everywhere and circumference nowhere." How could Christians believe in such a God? Most Christians, then and now, would have thought the joke was on Young and his coreligionists. How could the Latter-day Saints believe in a God of flesh and bones? In Mormon Christianity, the evangelical-turned-Catholic philosopher Stephen Webb encourages Protestants and Catholics alike to take Mormon thought seriously. At its center, he contends, is their iconoclastic but not unprecedented understanding of an embodied God.
"I am not a Mormon," Webb writes at the outset of his book, "but sometimes I wish I were." Webb is not alone; I have also felt pangs of what he calls "Mormon envy." After talking with Latter-day Saints about their current church "callings," I wondered why my congregation didn't ask everyone to pitch in a bit more. After researching the travails and triumphs of countless Mormon pioneers, I have wished I had such ready access to the details of my own ancestors. I certainly would love any additional assurance that I will be with my family (at least most members thereof) for eternity. And if the church offered short-term membership passes, I would certainly sign up whenever moving into or out of a home. Mormonism offers obvious attractions, cultivating—in Webb's words—"a sense of belonging, purpose, and focus that is not easy to find in many churches today." With the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter LDS Church) having surpassed fifteen million members worldwide, many Protestant communions might look upon their Mormon counterparts with envy.
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