Eric A. Eliason > Quotes

“A sense of the sacred is inseparable from a sense of radical discontinuity, be it temporal, rational, experiential, or a combination of the three. The mystification that is usually a concomitant of such discontinuity is at the very heart of the Christian tradition especially. Whether is takes the form of Tertullian's reputed "credo quia absurdum est" or the more subtle form of fundamentalism's ahistorical canonicalism, distance is the guarantor of the sacred's status as sacred.”
― Eric A. Eliason, Mormons and Mormonism: An Introduction to an American World Religion

“In reality, orthodoxy comes into being only after there are choices to be made, with competing, and mutually exclusive, options. Heresy is the choice that loses. Ecclesiastical history, like any other, is written by the victors.”
― Eric A. Eliason, Mormons and Mormonism: An Introduction to an American World Religion