So there isn't a lot about economics in Mason's book, but what's there is good. However, there are also some areas where I think Mason sails a little too close to the prevailing winds of "enlightened contemporary Mormonism," to coin a phrase. This final post is about those areas.
There are three main areas of what we might call enlightened contemporary Mormonism. They are gender equality, sexual orientation, and ecumenism. The first of these shows up on Page 1, when Mason writes of being called as branch president that "my main qualification being my possession of a Y chromosome and hence the Melchizedek Priesthood." It is NOT the case, as implied by the word "hence," that priesthood ordination is a matter of male DNA. Many men in the world have not been ordained to the priesthood. Many men in the Church have not been ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. And while it might have been intended as good-natured self-deprecation ("Ha ha, I'm not that great; the only qualification I have for being branch president is that I'm a dude"), it comes across as dismissive of the very idea of divine callings. God doesn't call branch presidents; he has district or mission leaders look around for a male and then say, "Good enough." It is reflective of the hubristic view that says, "God hasn't explained to my satisfaction why we can't have female ordination."
Now, as I've mentioned before, I don't believe that the current situation regarding female ordination is the Lord's final state of things. And I think one of the lessons of the 1978 revelation on the priesthood is that God doesn't force improved structures upon us if we are satisfied with imperfect ones. As Jesus tells the Nephites in 3 Ne. 15:16-24, His disciples at Jerusalem were left with a lesser understanding because they thought they already knew the answer. Mason writes that "one remarkable gift the Latter-day Saints could give would be to more fully reveal our Mother to her children around the world" (p. 81). In the sense of making the limited amount we know about a Heavenly Mother more-widely known, I agree. But we can't reveal something that God hasn't revealed first. We can humbly ask for more information, but we can't petulantly insist upon it. This formulation, that priesthood is male just because, is an assumption that has no doctrinal basis, as is the assumption that anything said of Heavenly Father could be equally said of Heavenly Mother. For instance, Mason writes of "a divine Mother and Father whose entire work and glory is for us to become like they are" (p. 52). While that might be a safe assumption, based on Moses 1:39, the fact is it IS an assumption; we don't know our Heavenly Mother's work and glory. We can't just read "Parents" into every scriptural reference to "Father."
Sexual orientation arrives when Mason criticizes the "nuclear family" focus, saying it can become an idol. He writes, "Our Heavenly Parents' plan of salvation was never focused on preserving your family so much as reconciling and exalting theirs" (p. 52). That's a big stretch that isn't supported by any doctrine. The 132nd section of the Doctrine and Covenants makes a lot of references to having your family, not just some random relatives. Mason's statement ignores that the extended family of God is only exalted in sealed nuclear-family relationships. As Elder D. Todd Christofferson said last General Conference, quoting President Russell M. Nelson at Sister Pat Holland's funeral, "Salvation is an individual matter, but exaltation is a family matter." We don't help our LGBTQ brothers and sisters by pretending that heterosexual sealing is just a policy decision.
Finally, Mason undermines unique truth claims in the effort to sound more reasonable and open to members of other faiths. His explanation of requiring rebaptism of early Church members completely ignores claims to priesthood authority. "This is why rebaptism was necessary for the first members of the church in April 1830," he writes. "It wasn't because God had shut his eyes to the sincere proclamation of faith as demonstrated in many centuries' worth of Christian sacraments" (p. 30). Unauthorized sacraments are not valid ordinances, irrespective of sincerity. This ecumenism is summed up by the laughingly-misconstrued quotation of the 13th Article of Faith (p. 75) that is cut down to only "We believe all things." Is that what Paul was talking about, a "you do you" Christianity that believes any sincere sacrament is valid in the eternities? When Mason writes with little explanation that "a more expansive view of the Restoration can embrace some aspects of secularism" (p. 77), he seems to belittle the heartache of Church members whose family members have followed elightened contemporary Mormonism out of their holy covenants. "What are you so worked up about? They answered the question of 'what does the Restoration mean for you' (p. 34) and decided that sincere sacraments binding their non-Proclamation family unit were just as valid. If you have a problem with that, maybe you've let your nuclear family 'become an idol that blinds and alienates' (p. 52)."
In short, it's tricky. Christ wouldn't have us be too restrictive and live in what Mason calls the fortress church, but neither would He have us too permissive and reduce "the only true and living church" to our idiosyncratic faith tradition. Probably no one is ever going to completely agree with someone else's perferred mix of restrictiveness and permissiveness. Where Mason advocates more permissiveness in economic thinking, I agree. Where he delves into gender equality, sexual orientation, and ecumenism, I think he is not restrictive enough. Loosening our views enough to allow both views in the same Church without loosening them so much that the Church disolves is the challenge of our times.
