What is the Restoration?
Faith Matters resources to accompany your Come Follow Me study: December 30–January 5
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“God loves His children in every nation of the world.”
The Restoration began with an answer to a question.
Jesus Christ has restored His Church.
What do you know about the Early-day Saints? Listen to “Meet the Early-day Saints,” a short podcast series from Wayfare:
Listen to a Faith Matters conversation with Kristian Heal, “How Are We Like the Ancient Christians?”
Why are you grateful for the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Listen to Fiona Givens talk about her “Gems of the Restoration” here:
“The promised Restoration goes forward.”
The Restoration began in the spring of 1820, when Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in a grove of trees in upstate New York. Joseph had questions, and Jesus had answers.
That was two hundred years ago. As the Restoration enters its third century, the world has new questions. A loving God has answers. In Restoration, scholar and author Patrick Mason reflects on what it means for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to participate in the “ongoing Restoration.” Every generation must rediscover the gospel anew, and this book breathes new life into well-worn terms and phrases. What does it mean to “restore Israel”? How can a church with less than one percent of the world’s population be “true”? What baggage have we picked up these past two centuries, and how do we move forward with confidence, relevance, and impact? The Restoration was intended to bless all of our Heavenly Parents’ children, especially the marginalized and vulnerable among us. This book will inspire and challenge you to rethink, recommit, and respond to God’s call to the 21st-century world.
“For anyone who cares about the Church’s mission in the twenty-first century, Restoration is a necessary book. Patrick Mason builds on the early leaders’ radical view that our charge is to renovate all of human society. He points to a few accretions we need to slough off to ready ourselves and then lays out areas calling for our best efforts. This is a strong read, but written with such a light touch and good humor, that I could not put it down.”
— Richard Bushman, author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
Watch our conversation with Patrick about the book:
Listen to “Restoring the People of God,” an excerpt from Restoration:
Read “The Restored Church or the "Restoring" Church?” an excerpt from Restoration:
Hear more from Patrick on what it means to be part of an ongoing Restoration:
We invite several perils by associating "restoration" and "fullness" with past and total incarnations. The words presume a fixity, a stasis, an ahistorical set of practices and principles sufficient for all times and conditions—a theological universe, in sum, that is static, sterile and ultimately, stifling. Creativity, novelty, growth, adaptation, adventure, and exuberance find little place in such a programmatic vision. Instead of a dynamic process of unfolding spiritual truths, a process that we participate in with God, connotations of the word “fullness” can suggest simply reassembling puzzle pieces already present into a bordered whole.
I see a different God in Joseph Smith’s revelations, one more similar to the God of Genesis, who says, “Let us create.”
—Terryl Givens, “The Abounding Church”
“The heavens are open.”
Read “Spiritual Cartography: Idolatry and Restoration” by Matthew Bowman, and “How Do We Live with the Past?” by James Goldberg, both from Issue 3 of Wayfare Magazine
“Heavenly messengers came to instruct Joseph.”
To receive future posts like this in your inbox, first be sure you are subscribed to the Faith Matters Substack, then go to manage your subscription and turn on notifications for “Come Follow Me”.