REVIEW: Restoration: God's Call to the 21st-Century World, by Patrick Q. Mason

I read this book six months ago and I have been literally carrying the physical book with me since then, figuring I would be more likely to blog my review if I always have the book available. (Don't feel bad for my back; it's a very light 100-page book--Amazon says it weighs 5.6 ounces, whereas my back is usually carrying around more than 4,000 ounces.) So if I've had the book with me night and day for six months why haven't I already blogged about it? Let me just say this: my church calling is hard. Like, really hard. I wouldn't recommend this calling to anyone.

So here's my review: There's one big idea to this book, and I think it's a good one. There are a few little particulars related to that idea, and I think they are bad. The book is bright yellow, and weighs 5.6 ounces. The end.

First, the good big idea. Mason sees a greatly expanded role for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the world, not in a proselyting sense, but in a humanitarian one. He starts by identifying the Church's historical withdrawal from society as a defensive response to persecution. He calls this idea the "fortress church" (p.2). He reviews early Church statements and teachings to find what the original generation of Church members thought the word "restoration" meant. Mason argues that what was being restored wasn't necessarily Christ's church or priesthood authority, but Israel (p. 13). "God's great restoration project seeks to unite all generations of the human family from the beginning to the present and onward all the way to the end of time" (pp. 16-7). God wants to restore people, not things.

This is my understanding of the idea of God having a covenant people. Not that some people are better in the sight of God--we're all His children and he is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11). Rather, God's house is a house of order (Doct. and Cov. 132:8), and He only called Abraham His son for the purpose of using Abraham's seed to bless the rest of His children. This is what Jesus meant when he said God was able to make children of Abraham from stones (Matt. 3:9): being God's chosen people is an assignment, not an honor. From my reading, it seems Mason would agree with these points. He writes, "The purpose of the Restoration is to fulfill the ancient promises that all of God's children, regardless of the nation or clan they find themselves born into, can and will be 'heirs to the kingdom of God'" (p. 18).

This is where Mason's book crosses path with my interest in millennial social thought (MST), and my main reason for reviewing this book in this space. Mason calls Jesus "the Messiah of the marginalized" (p. 19), and writes, "any restoration we claim to participate in must therefore be primarily oriented toward those who have suffered on the margins of history and currently suffer on the margin of society." Here he's starting to get pretty bold--we tend to think of socioeconomic issues as political issues. "I think he ought to keep his mouth shut about old age assistance," right? But I agree with Mason. After all, if our task is to build Zion we aren't going to do that without some large socioeconomic changes among us. Some Church members who are most opposed to taxation plans they would call "socialist" are in for a shock when they realize what it means to "have all things common" (4 Ne. 1:3). I've had temple-endowed members tell me before, "We aren't being asked to live the Law of Consecration right now." Elder Dale G. Renlund has said, "In the endowment, we covenant ... to dedicate ourselves and everything the Lord blesses us with to build up His Church" (Renlund, Apr. 2023). We've not only been asked to live it, we have accepted the challenge.

Mason identifies six areas of focus where Latter-day Saints should focus on changing the world, and six items of baggage we must address to allow us to do so. I don't even think these 12 things are where Mason goes wrong, but it's in the presentation of some of them that he errs, and I fear that members of the "fortress church" who are already distrustful of calls to do anything except live like a 1950s white middle-class American will ignore the good when rightly identifying the bad here.

But first the focus items and the baggage we should acknowledge. His six areas of focus for the future are

1. re-enchantment
2. human identity
3. religious freedom
4. refugees and immigrants
5. social justice
6. community

My next post will detail what he means by each of these.