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The Christ Who Heals: How God Restored The Truth That Saves Us
In a world increasingly prone to doubt, a foundation in Christ is the only sure basis of a durable discipleship. And for Latter-day Saints, the Jesus Christ revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith is, in some very significant ways, a different kind of Christ than the Jesus of modern Christianity. The Christ of the restored gospel collaborated with Heavenly Parents for our salvation even before the foundation of the world, "does not anything" save it be for our benefit (2 Nephi 26:24), and is determined to patiently guide and nurture every one of God's children into an eternal heavenly family. Most significantly, this Christ does not rescue us from a condition of original sin or depravity. Rather, He is primarily a healer of the wounds incident to a long-planned sojourn, one intended to immerse us in the trials, pains, and soul-stretching of this mortal schoolroom. He is not only the most remarkable being in the history of religious thought; He is, in fact, The Christ Who Heals.
191 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 30, 2017
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December 25, 2017
Sublimely written book that explores how the truths of the Restoration supplement and enhance what the ancient world knew about the character of Christ. You will want to highlight every insightful quote the authors present and savor the full impact of their words! A must-read for anyone LDS!
November 7, 2017
The most beautiful and stunning book on Jesus Christ that I have ever read. The Givens speak and teach with such clarity, resolving so many of the uncertainties and inconsistencies I have often felt in the gospel. Please, take the time to read this book.
The book starts with the premise that even we as members of the Church haven't fully divested ourselves of the "traditions of our Fathers." We have inherited a vocabulary of Christ, the Atonement, judgment, and salvation from Catholic and Protestant ancestors. Even with the Restoration of the gospel, some philosophies of men have still seeped through. The first half of the book is dedicated to documenting step-by-step what was lost in 2000 years of Christian history. They clarify that the Restoration was not about fixing small errors in doctrine, but restoring the cosmic context of the gospel:
The loss of the larger cosmic context was compounded by failing to see the Fall as a necessary and premeditated immersion of humankind into the crucible of experience, suffering, and schooling in the practice of love. The loss was not about baptizing at the wrong age or in the wrong medium. It was about not knowing that baptism makes us—all of us eventually—literally members of Christ’s family and co-heirs with him as planned in premortal councils. What is at stake is not simple difference in standards of sexual practice or marriage’s purpose per se. It is about failing to see the family structure as a divine mode of eternal association that is at the very heart of heaven itself. In sum, the “Restoration” is not about correcting particular doctrines or practices as much as it is about restoring their cosmic context. Consequently, Mormon emphasis on proper priestly administrators is not about authority for authority’s sake. It is about officiators who understand the contextual origins of that authority and the purposes for which priestly authority is to be used. It is about the performance of those sacred sacraments under God’s immediate direction, according to God’s original intentions and designs. In Joseph’s understanding, the tragedy that befell Christendom resulted from a critically impoverished account of the everlasting covenant, one that rendered all sacraments and ordinances ineffectual not through wickedness but through lost understanding of their scope and purpose—namely, to constitute the human family into a durable, eternal, heavenly association.
The second half of the book outlines in stunning detail what we know of Jesus Christ in light of the Restoration. This Christ is Christ, the Master Healer. We see how Christ doesn't come to judge the world, but to save it-- to heal us from our woundedness.
Some of the things I found most helpful were, the changing of the paradigm from one of sin to one of healing. This is no case of moral relativity, but one of changing to a more correct paradigm. Sin is evil. But punishment comes not from an angry and wrathful God, but rather as a natural consequence. God seeks to heal our wounds. I liked how the Given's define heaven as eternal sociality, that a life of service and relationships isn't just what we do to get to heaven; it IS heaven. We are building heaven here. I liked how the Givens broke the dichotomy between the just and fair God that rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked and the God who gives a cheap grace, letting everyone in. God is the teacher who never gives up on us, staying with us, loving us, and working with us until we get it right.
Some quotes:
For the unfailing plan initiated in heavenly councils that foresaw a necessary immersion in mortal experience, a Christianity stripped of premortal existence becomes instead a story that is primarily about recuperation, repair, and rehabilitation.
However, with the creedal formulations that stress incomprehensibility, and with the development of an atonement theology that emphasized a suffering Christ satisfying a God of uncompromising justice, the rift only grew. Christ embodies mercy where God is perfect justice; Jesus is all gentleness where the Father is all wrath. Rather than collaborators in the great plan of human happiness, Jesus is cast as our shield and protector against the inflexible demands of a sovereign God.
Christ admonishes us to pick up our cross and to follow him as he labored under the weight of his cross. Like Paul, we all have a heavy load with which we struggle. This is why we are called to a particular type of discipleship—to bear another’s burden requires that we kneel beside that person and feel the weight of her or his cross. That may take us to unfamiliar terrain.
(John Wesley) The grand reason why God is pleased to assist men by men, rather than immediately by himself, is undoubtedly to endear us to each other by these mutual good offices, in order to increase our happiness both in time and eternity. And is it not for the same reason that God is pleased to give his angels charge over us? namely, that he may endear us and them to each other.
On our own self-deception concerning our happiness:
"There is yet another sense in which atonement and healing involve collaboration. Our participation requires trusting submission to the Healer’s hand. That may be the most difficult part of the entire process. A popular tweet reads, “‘Do to others what you would want them to do to you’ is a good rule, but treating people how they themselves want to be treated is better.” That sounds reasonable enough, and one wonders why the Golden Rule wasn’t framed that way to begin with. After all, shouldn’t the act of kindness depend on the other person’s perception of his or her needs or desires? Actually, not necessarily. That would be true if we all knew what actions and conditions were necessary to our happiness, most conducive to our thriving.
That may seem silly or presumptuous. Silly, because of course I know what makes me happy. And presumptuous, because I certainly don’t want you thinking your opinion of what I need is more important than my opinion of what I need. But it is in fact neither silly nor presumptuous to doubt your own opinion about what will make you happy. We are capable of phenomenal feats of rationalization and self-deception."
C.S. Lewis: It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. . . . Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.
Defining religion: For, if we have recognized ethics, or defined religion, as that which moves us from where we are to where we sense we should and could be as free, self-determining human beings, then it is the duty of our religion to shake us out of our complacency. Indeed, true religion should frustrate our plans, reshape our short-term desires, break our habitual ways of responding to what is instinctual and natural in order to move us in the direction of the self that yearns for what Christ calls the more abundant life.
Witnessing other people's lives: In a rare film that affirms the good of familial relationships, a woman asks an acquaintance, “Why do you think that people get married?” He says, “Passion.” She says, “No!” He says, “Why then do people get married?” She replies, “Because we need a witness for our lives. There are a billion people on this planet. What does any one life really mean?” In committed relationships, “you are promising to care for one person . . . to care about them in everything: in the good things, in the bad things, in the terrible things, in the mundane things. All the time! Every day! You’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I love you and I will notice. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.’”
Analogy of God as school teacher: God’s reputation has suffered wild pendulum swings throughout Christian history. As we have surveyed, we find the sovereign deity of vengeance and wrath, and we find at the other extreme an indifferent God who will “beat us with a few stripes” and then award us all heavenly bliss.20 To use another analogy, some have seen God as a stern schoolmaster. He sets the standards, we take the test, and few of us pass. Only occasional A’s are handed out, while for most of us, slack and mediocre as we are, a perpetual detention is our destiny.
At the other end of the spectrum, some protest that the only alternative is a saccharine-steeped schoolmarm of a God who indulges her students, pats them sweetly on the head, and gives everyone an A in the end. This is the God of cheap grace, who tells us to eat, drink, and be merry, and expect at most a light caning before we are automatically saved in the end. In fleeing the God of wrath, some have found refuge in this version of the ever-indulgent God.
These options constitute a false dichotomy. We should not think they are the only alternatives. In this book, we are arguing for a third way, because our scriptures and our prophets alike have suggested both views are wrong. We believe our Lord is, rather, the persistently patient master teacher; he is the loving tutor who, devoted to his students, remains with us, staying after class for extra lessons, giving us individualized attention, practicing sums again and again, late into the night, for as long as it takes—until we master the material. And we are transformed in the process by his “long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge.”
Happiness isn't a zero-sum game: A zero-sum game is one in which there is a fixed number of resources, and one can only acquire more if someone else receives less. Any benefit won by me can only come at a cost to you. Status, for instance, works like that. As the political theorist Francis Fukuyama writes, “One person’s recognition can only come at the expense of the dignity of someone else; status can only be relative. In contests over status, there are no win-win situations.” Happiness is not a zero-sum game, but our telestial instincts lead us to act and think as if it were—as if happiness were just another form of status.
C. S. Lewis: “No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give up.”
The book starts with the premise that even we as members of the Church haven't fully divested ourselves of the "traditions of our Fathers." We have inherited a vocabulary of Christ, the Atonement, judgment, and salvation from Catholic and Protestant ancestors. Even with the Restoration of the gospel, some philosophies of men have still seeped through. The first half of the book is dedicated to documenting step-by-step what was lost in 2000 years of Christian history. They clarify that the Restoration was not about fixing small errors in doctrine, but restoring the cosmic context of the gospel:
The loss of the larger cosmic context was compounded by failing to see the Fall as a necessary and premeditated immersion of humankind into the crucible of experience, suffering, and schooling in the practice of love. The loss was not about baptizing at the wrong age or in the wrong medium. It was about not knowing that baptism makes us—all of us eventually—literally members of Christ’s family and co-heirs with him as planned in premortal councils. What is at stake is not simple difference in standards of sexual practice or marriage’s purpose per se. It is about failing to see the family structure as a divine mode of eternal association that is at the very heart of heaven itself. In sum, the “Restoration” is not about correcting particular doctrines or practices as much as it is about restoring their cosmic context. Consequently, Mormon emphasis on proper priestly administrators is not about authority for authority’s sake. It is about officiators who understand the contextual origins of that authority and the purposes for which priestly authority is to be used. It is about the performance of those sacred sacraments under God’s immediate direction, according to God’s original intentions and designs. In Joseph’s understanding, the tragedy that befell Christendom resulted from a critically impoverished account of the everlasting covenant, one that rendered all sacraments and ordinances ineffectual not through wickedness but through lost understanding of their scope and purpose—namely, to constitute the human family into a durable, eternal, heavenly association.
The second half of the book outlines in stunning detail what we know of Jesus Christ in light of the Restoration. This Christ is Christ, the Master Healer. We see how Christ doesn't come to judge the world, but to save it-- to heal us from our woundedness.
Some of the things I found most helpful were, the changing of the paradigm from one of sin to one of healing. This is no case of moral relativity, but one of changing to a more correct paradigm. Sin is evil. But punishment comes not from an angry and wrathful God, but rather as a natural consequence. God seeks to heal our wounds. I liked how the Given's define heaven as eternal sociality, that a life of service and relationships isn't just what we do to get to heaven; it IS heaven. We are building heaven here. I liked how the Givens broke the dichotomy between the just and fair God that rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked and the God who gives a cheap grace, letting everyone in. God is the teacher who never gives up on us, staying with us, loving us, and working with us until we get it right.
Some quotes:
For the unfailing plan initiated in heavenly councils that foresaw a necessary immersion in mortal experience, a Christianity stripped of premortal existence becomes instead a story that is primarily about recuperation, repair, and rehabilitation.
However, with the creedal formulations that stress incomprehensibility, and with the development of an atonement theology that emphasized a suffering Christ satisfying a God of uncompromising justice, the rift only grew. Christ embodies mercy where God is perfect justice; Jesus is all gentleness where the Father is all wrath. Rather than collaborators in the great plan of human happiness, Jesus is cast as our shield and protector against the inflexible demands of a sovereign God.
Christ admonishes us to pick up our cross and to follow him as he labored under the weight of his cross. Like Paul, we all have a heavy load with which we struggle. This is why we are called to a particular type of discipleship—to bear another’s burden requires that we kneel beside that person and feel the weight of her or his cross. That may take us to unfamiliar terrain.
(John Wesley) The grand reason why God is pleased to assist men by men, rather than immediately by himself, is undoubtedly to endear us to each other by these mutual good offices, in order to increase our happiness both in time and eternity. And is it not for the same reason that God is pleased to give his angels charge over us? namely, that he may endear us and them to each other.
On our own self-deception concerning our happiness:
"There is yet another sense in which atonement and healing involve collaboration. Our participation requires trusting submission to the Healer’s hand. That may be the most difficult part of the entire process. A popular tweet reads, “‘Do to others what you would want them to do to you’ is a good rule, but treating people how they themselves want to be treated is better.” That sounds reasonable enough, and one wonders why the Golden Rule wasn’t framed that way to begin with. After all, shouldn’t the act of kindness depend on the other person’s perception of his or her needs or desires? Actually, not necessarily. That would be true if we all knew what actions and conditions were necessary to our happiness, most conducive to our thriving.
That may seem silly or presumptuous. Silly, because of course I know what makes me happy. And presumptuous, because I certainly don’t want you thinking your opinion of what I need is more important than my opinion of what I need. But it is in fact neither silly nor presumptuous to doubt your own opinion about what will make you happy. We are capable of phenomenal feats of rationalization and self-deception."
C.S. Lewis: It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. . . . Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.
Defining religion: For, if we have recognized ethics, or defined religion, as that which moves us from where we are to where we sense we should and could be as free, self-determining human beings, then it is the duty of our religion to shake us out of our complacency. Indeed, true religion should frustrate our plans, reshape our short-term desires, break our habitual ways of responding to what is instinctual and natural in order to move us in the direction of the self that yearns for what Christ calls the more abundant life.
Witnessing other people's lives: In a rare film that affirms the good of familial relationships, a woman asks an acquaintance, “Why do you think that people get married?” He says, “Passion.” She says, “No!” He says, “Why then do people get married?” She replies, “Because we need a witness for our lives. There are a billion people on this planet. What does any one life really mean?” In committed relationships, “you are promising to care for one person . . . to care about them in everything: in the good things, in the bad things, in the terrible things, in the mundane things. All the time! Every day! You’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I love you and I will notice. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.’”
Analogy of God as school teacher: God’s reputation has suffered wild pendulum swings throughout Christian history. As we have surveyed, we find the sovereign deity of vengeance and wrath, and we find at the other extreme an indifferent God who will “beat us with a few stripes” and then award us all heavenly bliss.20 To use another analogy, some have seen God as a stern schoolmaster. He sets the standards, we take the test, and few of us pass. Only occasional A’s are handed out, while for most of us, slack and mediocre as we are, a perpetual detention is our destiny.
At the other end of the spectrum, some protest that the only alternative is a saccharine-steeped schoolmarm of a God who indulges her students, pats them sweetly on the head, and gives everyone an A in the end. This is the God of cheap grace, who tells us to eat, drink, and be merry, and expect at most a light caning before we are automatically saved in the end. In fleeing the God of wrath, some have found refuge in this version of the ever-indulgent God.
These options constitute a false dichotomy. We should not think they are the only alternatives. In this book, we are arguing for a third way, because our scriptures and our prophets alike have suggested both views are wrong. We believe our Lord is, rather, the persistently patient master teacher; he is the loving tutor who, devoted to his students, remains with us, staying after class for extra lessons, giving us individualized attention, practicing sums again and again, late into the night, for as long as it takes—until we master the material. And we are transformed in the process by his “long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge.”
Happiness isn't a zero-sum game: A zero-sum game is one in which there is a fixed number of resources, and one can only acquire more if someone else receives less. Any benefit won by me can only come at a cost to you. Status, for instance, works like that. As the political theorist Francis Fukuyama writes, “One person’s recognition can only come at the expense of the dignity of someone else; status can only be relative. In contests over status, there are no win-win situations.” Happiness is not a zero-sum game, but our telestial instincts lead us to act and think as if it were—as if happiness were just another form of status.
C. S. Lewis: “No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give up.”
April 22, 2019
Beautiful.
Notes from the book:
Part I - Early Christianity
-The division of the Roman Empire into Western and Eastern empires (governed from Rome and Constantinople, respectively) corresponded with the division of the Christian church into Western and Eastern portions. Augustine, of the Western tradition, had tremendous influence on Christian theology. Augustine taught against the doctrines of pre-existence (believing it to diminish God's divinity), free will (believing it was incompatible with grace), and promoted the doctrine of original sin. Givens provides evidence that the Augustine, and the Western tradition, deviate from original Christian teachings in these respects. This is partly supported by citing theologies from the Eastern tradition that preached pre-existence, free will, and a view of the fall more consistent with that of the restored Church. The Western tradition has had a much larger influence on Christianity in the Americas than did the Eastern.
-The doctrine of pre-existence endows humans with divinity (which is exactly what Augustine found so repulsive in it). This doctrine was taught in the early Christian church, and is vital for understanding our relationship with God, our Father. However, "the loss of this truth about pre-earthly councils and covenants acted as a falling domino that set in motion an entire series of catastrophic changes to the Christian understanding of God, humans, and Christ's role in our redemption."
-The removal of human pre-existence (and, consequently, of human divinity) requires that our relationship with God is no longer like that of a parent and child, but more like a sovereign and subject. This is also emphasized by the teachings of Western theologians, which emphasize that God's purpose in creating us is to bring Himself greater glory.
-Western tradition also began to teach that the Fall of Adam and Eve was a catastrophic mistake which required remediation. Whereas the Eastern tradition taught that the fall was a step forward in the progression of Adam and Eve, as well as of humankind.
Part II - Restored Gospel
-Modern-day revelation teaches that we exist to have joy, and that God's purpose is to help us become like Him.
-Christ desires to adopt us as His own. Baptism, the gate by which we enter God's kingdom, is for a remission of sins. But more importantly it signifies a new, covenant-oriented life as an adopted child of Christ. In the early Christian church, baptismal candidates would be washed, anointed, and given new clothing, similar to how Adam and Eve were given new clothing after their removal from the Garden.
-Jesus atoned for us by descending into the greatest depths of misery and pain possible, suffering so that we needn't. His broken, bleeding body is the passageway through which we travel to return to God's presence (symbolized by the temple veil which was torn when He died, as well as Abraham passing a burning lamp between the two halves of a severed animal sacrifice).
-The Greek word 'sodzo' is often translated in the KJV as 'save', but could just as well be translated to 'heal'. This also means that Jesus' title as 'Savior of the World' could also be rendered as 'Healer of the World.' "One virtue of such a substitution is that healing signals the beginning of a glorious journey now unfolding, while saving implies its end" (p 64). The fact that saving tends to be more appealing to us may be partly due to our inherited preoccupation with our own sinfulness, wickedness, and unworthiness before God. In contrast, healing is for woundedness, pain, sickness, brokenness. To view myself as broken (in need of healing) is much more generous than to view myself as wicked (in need of saving). Neither is necessarily right or wrong, but encapsulates different ways of viewing myself, the world, and the role Jesus' plays in both.
-By loving and serving one another, we are not qualifying ourselves for heaven - we are creating it.
-Jesus, by becoming human and doing human things (such as eating, sleeping, etc), sanctifies those mundane activities (ie, He shows us that there is a holiness to those activities). Perhaps the greatest, most holy, of the human experiences which He sanctified is suffering. Suffering is at the very heart of the journey that our Heavenly Parents proposed, as it has incredible capability of binding us together and binding us to God. Jesus' suffering is the epitome of this principle.
-God's judgement does not resemble an earthly judge in a courtroom. Both Alma and Jacob describe judgement as something we do to ourselves, as we are given a perfect knowledge of our motivations and actions. God's function in this process is to provide love, mercy and forgiveness, helping us to not forever wallow in our own guilt. Alma's three-day experience is an example of this. Judgement is not a final accusatory moment, it is an awakening of self. "Self-knowledge is the precursor to healing and to wholeness. Judgement is the prelude to progress. ... Judgement prevents condemnation, it does not precede it. Judgement is an assist in recognizing our true condition in order that we may improve it, not suffer from it. ... God wants us to live beautiful lives, devoid of unnecessary suffering. Certainly right and wrong, sin and virtue are indispensable elements. But the point of God's concern about our sin and virtue is that sin is pain, and virtue is happiness."
-God's love for His children is of a "depth and beauty beyond all imagining." It is that love that pulls us to Him, that compels us to want to become like Him. He doesn't coerce or force, He just loves us. It is this love that compelled Him to "[lay] down his own life that he may draw all men unto him" (2 Nephi 26:24). His love is such that all of His children will eventually be drawn to Him, simply because we will all want to be with Him.
Notes from the book:
Part I - Early Christianity
-The division of the Roman Empire into Western and Eastern empires (governed from Rome and Constantinople, respectively) corresponded with the division of the Christian church into Western and Eastern portions. Augustine, of the Western tradition, had tremendous influence on Christian theology. Augustine taught against the doctrines of pre-existence (believing it to diminish God's divinity), free will (believing it was incompatible with grace), and promoted the doctrine of original sin. Givens provides evidence that the Augustine, and the Western tradition, deviate from original Christian teachings in these respects. This is partly supported by citing theologies from the Eastern tradition that preached pre-existence, free will, and a view of the fall more consistent with that of the restored Church. The Western tradition has had a much larger influence on Christianity in the Americas than did the Eastern.
-The doctrine of pre-existence endows humans with divinity (which is exactly what Augustine found so repulsive in it). This doctrine was taught in the early Christian church, and is vital for understanding our relationship with God, our Father. However, "the loss of this truth about pre-earthly councils and covenants acted as a falling domino that set in motion an entire series of catastrophic changes to the Christian understanding of God, humans, and Christ's role in our redemption."
-The removal of human pre-existence (and, consequently, of human divinity) requires that our relationship with God is no longer like that of a parent and child, but more like a sovereign and subject. This is also emphasized by the teachings of Western theologians, which emphasize that God's purpose in creating us is to bring Himself greater glory.
-Western tradition also began to teach that the Fall of Adam and Eve was a catastrophic mistake which required remediation. Whereas the Eastern tradition taught that the fall was a step forward in the progression of Adam and Eve, as well as of humankind.
Part II - Restored Gospel
-Modern-day revelation teaches that we exist to have joy, and that God's purpose is to help us become like Him.
-Christ desires to adopt us as His own. Baptism, the gate by which we enter God's kingdom, is for a remission of sins. But more importantly it signifies a new, covenant-oriented life as an adopted child of Christ. In the early Christian church, baptismal candidates would be washed, anointed, and given new clothing, similar to how Adam and Eve were given new clothing after their removal from the Garden.
-Jesus atoned for us by descending into the greatest depths of misery and pain possible, suffering so that we needn't. His broken, bleeding body is the passageway through which we travel to return to God's presence (symbolized by the temple veil which was torn when He died, as well as Abraham passing a burning lamp between the two halves of a severed animal sacrifice).
-The Greek word 'sodzo' is often translated in the KJV as 'save', but could just as well be translated to 'heal'. This also means that Jesus' title as 'Savior of the World' could also be rendered as 'Healer of the World.' "One virtue of such a substitution is that healing signals the beginning of a glorious journey now unfolding, while saving implies its end" (p 64). The fact that saving tends to be more appealing to us may be partly due to our inherited preoccupation with our own sinfulness, wickedness, and unworthiness before God. In contrast, healing is for woundedness, pain, sickness, brokenness. To view myself as broken (in need of healing) is much more generous than to view myself as wicked (in need of saving). Neither is necessarily right or wrong, but encapsulates different ways of viewing myself, the world, and the role Jesus' plays in both.
-By loving and serving one another, we are not qualifying ourselves for heaven - we are creating it.
-Jesus, by becoming human and doing human things (such as eating, sleeping, etc), sanctifies those mundane activities (ie, He shows us that there is a holiness to those activities). Perhaps the greatest, most holy, of the human experiences which He sanctified is suffering. Suffering is at the very heart of the journey that our Heavenly Parents proposed, as it has incredible capability of binding us together and binding us to God. Jesus' suffering is the epitome of this principle.
-God's judgement does not resemble an earthly judge in a courtroom. Both Alma and Jacob describe judgement as something we do to ourselves, as we are given a perfect knowledge of our motivations and actions. God's function in this process is to provide love, mercy and forgiveness, helping us to not forever wallow in our own guilt. Alma's three-day experience is an example of this. Judgement is not a final accusatory moment, it is an awakening of self. "Self-knowledge is the precursor to healing and to wholeness. Judgement is the prelude to progress. ... Judgement prevents condemnation, it does not precede it. Judgement is an assist in recognizing our true condition in order that we may improve it, not suffer from it. ... God wants us to live beautiful lives, devoid of unnecessary suffering. Certainly right and wrong, sin and virtue are indispensable elements. But the point of God's concern about our sin and virtue is that sin is pain, and virtue is happiness."
-God's love for His children is of a "depth and beauty beyond all imagining." It is that love that pulls us to Him, that compels us to want to become like Him. He doesn't coerce or force, He just loves us. It is this love that compelled Him to "[lay] down his own life that he may draw all men unto him" (2 Nephi 26:24). His love is such that all of His children will eventually be drawn to Him, simply because we will all want to be with Him.
May 25, 2025
I don't know much about Christology.
Don't know much Christian history.
I watched the Givenses in an interview with Faith Matters admitting that they discovered through writing this book that the LDS Church is closer to the Eastern church than the Western church. Quite startling that the most prolific LDS theologian didn't know which Christian tradition is closest to our own, until now. I learned that fact from my American Christianity professor, Roger Keller, while an undergrad. (All the RMs who served in Russia I've talked to don't know this either.)
Robert Boylan, a convert from Catholicism and graduate of a Catholic seminary in Ireland, wrote a long critique of this book, wherein pointed out places Givens and Givens overstated the evidence, like claiming that the church father Origen believed in the pre-existence of human souls when he actually believed in reincarnation, and in areas where the misunderstood Calvin, etc. Nevertheless, a Greek Orthodox theologian, who's a Facebook friend (and formerly LDS) said that the historical outline in this book, where G&G laid out beliefs in the East and West, was accurate.
And although I knew that the Eastern Orthodox Church resembles our Church more than the Western church does, I didn't know that an East-West theological divide existed early in Christian history, long before the Catholic-Orthodox schism around 1000 AD. The timeline helped me see that.
I don't know any other works dedicated to Latter-day Saint Christology. John Turner's Mormon Jesus was magnificent, although that was partly a reception history. So you can imagine my reaction when I discovered that the first chapters of this book are:
1. Covenant
2. God
3. The Fall
4. Agency
5. Sin
G&G start into Christology with chapter 6, "The Selfless Christ." The chapter title reveals just how anthropocentric LDS theology is. They open with the UN Declaration on Human Rights, and showed how it started: Origen saying that Christ revealed himself to us to make us virtuous. And where it's going: "Man's chief end is to glorify God." (Even more egotistically, my Sharing the Gospel professor at BYU said that Protestants believe God made us to praise him.) Of course, G&G bring up Moses 1:39. The Christ Who Heals concerns the branch of Christology that deals with the role of Christ (as you can see in other reviews of this book), and not about other branches that deal with his nature or person. (For those branches you can read the Book of Mormon.)
Ch. 7, "The Adoptive Christ," asserts that we're adopted by Christ when we're baptized. All good, although I wonder among all the material that they marshalled, King Benjamin was left out ("Ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you"). OK, I need to remind myself that this is a review, not a treatise on why I should be the one writing this book.
Ch. 8, "The Atoning Christ," is the headiest chapter. It explicates the LDS theory of atonement. I used to think that the seminary video titled "the Mediator," wherein Boyd K. Packer narrates a friend paying the debt of someone to save him prison time, was the only atonement mechanism out there. But I learned from reading Mere Christianity that that's called "Penal Substitution," and that Catholics have their own mechanism (Eastern Orthodoxy also their own). And that seminary video isn't correct. This is how G&G explains it. Buckle up.
1. There are consequences to choices.
2. In anticipation of bad human choices, a Savior was appointed.
3. Christ suffered for the consequences of our injurious choices.
4. This preserves the regularity of the cosmos and agency.
I'm grateful to G&G for devising an LDS-unique atonement theory, but questions remain. How is free will preserved when someone else suffers the consequences of our choices? Isn't this another form of penal substitution, replacing justice with agency? Someone please explain.
Also in ch. 7, G&G argue that paraclete in the NT should be translated "comforter" and not "advocate." They explain, "Comfort, not judicial defense is the purpose of a paraclete." I'm not sure this works contextually. I just happen to be reading in John 16, where Jesus says the paraclete "will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment." That's something an advocate, not a comforter does.
Ch. 9, "The Collaborative Christ," I believe, is the most beautiful and practical chapter. When we're baptized, we covenant with God to mourn with and comfort others, while standing as a witness of Christ. We are essentially suffering for others as Christ suffered for us. We are emulating Christ.
I have a couple of comments on the non-christological chapters.
The first concerns God (ch. 2). It's funny that he appeals to Justin Martyr's belief that there are two gods. He didn't provide a quote, but I found it: "There is, and there is said to be, another God and another Lord subject to the maker of all things." It's funny because I've also heard Trinitarians use Justin as an example of a pre-Nicene formulation of the Trinity, as he said that the logos was "born of the same substance as the Father." If the Trinity was to reconcile the three gods of the NT with the one God of the OT, why are both Trinitarians and non-Trinitarians appealing to Justin Martyr, who believed both in two gods and that the Father and the Son are consubstantial?
It's like the two-power period in second-temple Judaism. They clearly believed in two gods (see my review of Two Gods in Heaven, yet Trinitarians believed that the two powers foreshadowed the Trinity (they were a "binity").
Regarding the Fall (ch. 3), G&G wrote, "the Eastern Church succeeded for a time in keeping alive an understanding of mortality as a step forward, not backward" (p. 28). The modern Eastern Orthodox Church distinguishes between guilt from the Fall, which they still reject, and a sinful nature from the Fall, which they accept.
Latter-day Saints believe we are guilty from the Fall, but the atonement took care of that: "The son of God hath atoned for original guilt" (Moses 6:54).
To conclude, it's always good to read books on Christology, to keep our minds focused on Christ.
Don't know much Christian history.
I watched the Givenses in an interview with Faith Matters admitting that they discovered through writing this book that the LDS Church is closer to the Eastern church than the Western church. Quite startling that the most prolific LDS theologian didn't know which Christian tradition is closest to our own, until now. I learned that fact from my American Christianity professor, Roger Keller, while an undergrad. (All the RMs who served in Russia I've talked to don't know this either.)
Robert Boylan, a convert from Catholicism and graduate of a Catholic seminary in Ireland, wrote a long critique of this book, wherein pointed out places Givens and Givens overstated the evidence, like claiming that the church father Origen believed in the pre-existence of human souls when he actually believed in reincarnation, and in areas where the misunderstood Calvin, etc. Nevertheless, a Greek Orthodox theologian, who's a Facebook friend (and formerly LDS) said that the historical outline in this book, where G&G laid out beliefs in the East and West, was accurate.
And although I knew that the Eastern Orthodox Church resembles our Church more than the Western church does, I didn't know that an East-West theological divide existed early in Christian history, long before the Catholic-Orthodox schism around 1000 AD. The timeline helped me see that.
I don't know any other works dedicated to Latter-day Saint Christology. John Turner's Mormon Jesus was magnificent, although that was partly a reception history. So you can imagine my reaction when I discovered that the first chapters of this book are:
1. Covenant
2. God
3. The Fall
4. Agency
5. Sin
G&G start into Christology with chapter 6, "The Selfless Christ." The chapter title reveals just how anthropocentric LDS theology is. They open with the UN Declaration on Human Rights, and showed how it started: Origen saying that Christ revealed himself to us to make us virtuous. And where it's going: "Man's chief end is to glorify God." (Even more egotistically, my Sharing the Gospel professor at BYU said that Protestants believe God made us to praise him.) Of course, G&G bring up Moses 1:39. The Christ Who Heals concerns the branch of Christology that deals with the role of Christ (as you can see in other reviews of this book), and not about other branches that deal with his nature or person. (For those branches you can read the Book of Mormon.)
Ch. 7, "The Adoptive Christ," asserts that we're adopted by Christ when we're baptized. All good, although I wonder among all the material that they marshalled, King Benjamin was left out ("Ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you"). OK, I need to remind myself that this is a review, not a treatise on why I should be the one writing this book.
Ch. 8, "The Atoning Christ," is the headiest chapter. It explicates the LDS theory of atonement. I used to think that the seminary video titled "the Mediator," wherein Boyd K. Packer narrates a friend paying the debt of someone to save him prison time, was the only atonement mechanism out there. But I learned from reading Mere Christianity that that's called "Penal Substitution," and that Catholics have their own mechanism (Eastern Orthodoxy also their own). And that seminary video isn't correct. This is how G&G explains it. Buckle up.
1. There are consequences to choices.
2. In anticipation of bad human choices, a Savior was appointed.
3. Christ suffered for the consequences of our injurious choices.
4. This preserves the regularity of the cosmos and agency.
I'm grateful to G&G for devising an LDS-unique atonement theory, but questions remain. How is free will preserved when someone else suffers the consequences of our choices? Isn't this another form of penal substitution, replacing justice with agency? Someone please explain.
Also in ch. 7, G&G argue that paraclete in the NT should be translated "comforter" and not "advocate." They explain, "Comfort, not judicial defense is the purpose of a paraclete." I'm not sure this works contextually. I just happen to be reading in John 16, where Jesus says the paraclete "will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment." That's something an advocate, not a comforter does.
Ch. 9, "The Collaborative Christ," I believe, is the most beautiful and practical chapter. When we're baptized, we covenant with God to mourn with and comfort others, while standing as a witness of Christ. We are essentially suffering for others as Christ suffered for us. We are emulating Christ.
I have a couple of comments on the non-christological chapters.
The first concerns God (ch. 2). It's funny that he appeals to Justin Martyr's belief that there are two gods. He didn't provide a quote, but I found it: "There is, and there is said to be, another God and another Lord subject to the maker of all things." It's funny because I've also heard Trinitarians use Justin as an example of a pre-Nicene formulation of the Trinity, as he said that the logos was "born of the same substance as the Father." If the Trinity was to reconcile the three gods of the NT with the one God of the OT, why are both Trinitarians and non-Trinitarians appealing to Justin Martyr, who believed both in two gods and that the Father and the Son are consubstantial?
It's like the two-power period in second-temple Judaism. They clearly believed in two gods (see my review of Two Gods in Heaven, yet Trinitarians believed that the two powers foreshadowed the Trinity (they were a "binity").
Regarding the Fall (ch. 3), G&G wrote, "the Eastern Church succeeded for a time in keeping alive an understanding of mortality as a step forward, not backward" (p. 28). The modern Eastern Orthodox Church distinguishes between guilt from the Fall, which they still reject, and a sinful nature from the Fall, which they accept.
Latter-day Saints believe we are guilty from the Fall, but the atonement took care of that: "The son of God hath atoned for original guilt" (Moses 6:54).
To conclude, it's always good to read books on Christology, to keep our minds focused on Christ.
March 14, 2019
Let me start by saying that I am not a “Church books” person. If it was published by Deseret Book that’s usually enough to turn me off (or bore me to tears). But the Givens are an exception, and this is by far my favorite of their work. Absolutely beautiful and paradigm shifting in every respect. I believe there is so much truth in this book, and was somewhat startled at how new it all felt to me as a lifetime member of the church, considering how ancient and fundamental they argue it is. I also benefitted greatly from their illumination of the differences between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other mainstream Christian churches. Unfailingly well researched, as always. I was so stimulated by all the quotations from ancient theologians! If I can be half as well read as Fiona Givens by the end of my life, I will die happy. Highly, highly recommend.
October 25, 2024
Read through again- still love this book.
I loved this book. Often when you are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints you are just known as a weirdo that doesn't drink alcohol. But that is an insignificant detail when compared to the information in this book. This book describes Christianity from the time of Christ's death and all the factors that influenced how it changed over the years, as well as the church that was restored by Joseph Smith. The purpose of the book is to describe the important truths about Christ that have been restored.
I loved this book. Often when you are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints you are just known as a weirdo that doesn't drink alcohol. But that is an insignificant detail when compared to the information in this book. This book describes Christianity from the time of Christ's death and all the factors that influenced how it changed over the years, as well as the church that was restored by Joseph Smith. The purpose of the book is to describe the important truths about Christ that have been restored.
June 21, 2018
This is a remarkable book. It ought to be required reading for all Latter-day Saints. The Givenses do a wonderful job of showing how the Mormon understanding of Christ is consistent with many of the earliest Christian leaders (including many early female Christians of whom I was unaware). They refocus the Restoration on Christ and demonstrate how Joseph Smith's restoration of true doctrine concerning the Savior is his greatest contribution. Don't miss this one!
April 20, 2022
every time i read one of their books, i am changed a little more. i will be eternally grateful for the things they have taught me about God.
March 30, 2018
The first few chapters of this relatively short book are VERY heavy with theology. I had to bust out a dictionary to get through some of it. I took the reading very slow, because conceptually, there were a lot of things I wanted to consider and digest.
I loved how the timeline provided an overlap of the early Church fathers. The reader is also given a map and a brief overview of each father in "Setting the Stage", which is essentially a preface.
Anyone who has ever dealt with the nuance of language will appreciate the detail provided in the introduction about the difficulty involved in translating any text. After you move past these segments, the reading becomes a lot easier and more enjoyable, though no less significant in what it presents. My favorite chapter was The Collaborative Christ. Some really great points were made in this chapter:
First with regard to the trinity: "Catholic and Protestant scholars alike note that with regard to the formulation of "one God in three Persons,...among Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching...such a mentality or perspective. Another historian notes that the 'doctrine of the trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the New Testament.'" That was fascinating information to me - that Catholics and Protestant scholars basically concede that the concept of the trinity didn't appear until the Council of Nicea (wherein participants voted on God's nature). References are cited from the New Catholic Encyclopedia and Harper's Bible Dictionary. (p. 73)
A quote I loved was, "Heaven is not a reward for merit or a repair of an Adamic catastrophe; it is an eternal sociality of celestial beings, existing, striving, and creatively engaging in a loving relation." It goes on to share that baptismal covenants are a vertical and horizontal set of opportunities - vertically with God, horizontally with our brothers and sisters we serve on earth. There is a great discourse on this concept given in the Book of Mormon by Alma in Mosiah 18, when he goes over what baptismal covenants entail. Then there is a perfect illustration of God keeping those same covenants with His people in Mosiah 24:13-16. I LOVED this insight. It was both simple and profound. (p74-75)
On p80, the concept of co-participating with Christ as saviors is explored, which is something I love - the idea of working in a collaboration with Christ to help in the work of healing and repairing disconnected, damaged relationships in the human family. A beautiful quote from Berdyaev is shared to elaborate: "One must help others and do good works, not for saving one's own soul, but for love, for the union of men, for the bringing of their souls together in the kingdom of God. Love for man is a value in itself, the quality of goodness is imminent in it." The chapter then moves on to why we are not the best judge of what will make us happy.
In the chapter The Saving Christ, I learned some great new lessons from the segment "The Jonah Complex" (p114). "Human psychology seems indelibly conditioned to measure our well-being by comparison with our neighbor...To a disappointing degree, we...assess our own happiness by measuring our conditions and circumstances against those of others. What makes me feel rich or fortunate or successful is not an absolute quantity; it is more often the sense that I am richer or more fortunate or more successful than my neighbor or colleague. We often reinforce this logic at the dinner table. Telling a child to be grateful he has Brussels sprouts when the Sudanese don't have anything to eat...sends a dismal message: that we can feel better, happier, more appreciative of our life only if we see our happiness as defined by better circumstances than our neighbors. It's also a dangerous message because of where it takes us. If happiness, well-being, or blessedness depends on a ranking of privilege or resources or comparative circumstances, then what of heaven?" LOVED this!
I learned so much from this book and loved the way it was written to back up the scholarship - introduction, background, footnotes, index, etc. A great birthday present!
I loved how the timeline provided an overlap of the early Church fathers. The reader is also given a map and a brief overview of each father in "Setting the Stage", which is essentially a preface.
Anyone who has ever dealt with the nuance of language will appreciate the detail provided in the introduction about the difficulty involved in translating any text. After you move past these segments, the reading becomes a lot easier and more enjoyable, though no less significant in what it presents. My favorite chapter was The Collaborative Christ. Some really great points were made in this chapter:
First with regard to the trinity: "Catholic and Protestant scholars alike note that with regard to the formulation of "one God in three Persons,...among Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching...such a mentality or perspective. Another historian notes that the 'doctrine of the trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the New Testament.'" That was fascinating information to me - that Catholics and Protestant scholars basically concede that the concept of the trinity didn't appear until the Council of Nicea (wherein participants voted on God's nature). References are cited from the New Catholic Encyclopedia and Harper's Bible Dictionary. (p. 73)
A quote I loved was, "Heaven is not a reward for merit or a repair of an Adamic catastrophe; it is an eternal sociality of celestial beings, existing, striving, and creatively engaging in a loving relation." It goes on to share that baptismal covenants are a vertical and horizontal set of opportunities - vertically with God, horizontally with our brothers and sisters we serve on earth. There is a great discourse on this concept given in the Book of Mormon by Alma in Mosiah 18, when he goes over what baptismal covenants entail. Then there is a perfect illustration of God keeping those same covenants with His people in Mosiah 24:13-16. I LOVED this insight. It was both simple and profound. (p74-75)
On p80, the concept of co-participating with Christ as saviors is explored, which is something I love - the idea of working in a collaboration with Christ to help in the work of healing and repairing disconnected, damaged relationships in the human family. A beautiful quote from Berdyaev is shared to elaborate: "One must help others and do good works, not for saving one's own soul, but for love, for the union of men, for the bringing of their souls together in the kingdom of God. Love for man is a value in itself, the quality of goodness is imminent in it." The chapter then moves on to why we are not the best judge of what will make us happy.
In the chapter The Saving Christ, I learned some great new lessons from the segment "The Jonah Complex" (p114). "Human psychology seems indelibly conditioned to measure our well-being by comparison with our neighbor...To a disappointing degree, we...assess our own happiness by measuring our conditions and circumstances against those of others. What makes me feel rich or fortunate or successful is not an absolute quantity; it is more often the sense that I am richer or more fortunate or more successful than my neighbor or colleague. We often reinforce this logic at the dinner table. Telling a child to be grateful he has Brussels sprouts when the Sudanese don't have anything to eat...sends a dismal message: that we can feel better, happier, more appreciative of our life only if we see our happiness as defined by better circumstances than our neighbors. It's also a dangerous message because of where it takes us. If happiness, well-being, or blessedness depends on a ranking of privilege or resources or comparative circumstances, then what of heaven?" LOVED this!
I learned so much from this book and loved the way it was written to back up the scholarship - introduction, background, footnotes, index, etc. A great birthday present!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 20, 2022
I have read many books about Jesus Christ and His Atonement. This one is more formal than most and required a different level of attention. Beautifully written with deep and meaningful insights.
Quotes to remember:
“You could nove have reached the palm-groves unless you had experienced the harsh trials; you could not have reached the gentle springs without first having to overcome sadness and difficulties. … The education of the soul is an age-long spiritual adventure, beginning in this life and continuing after death.” - Origen, the first systematic theologian the primitive church produced
“God’s omnipotence lies in what we have quoted elsewhere as the divine power “to alchemist suffering, tragedy, and loss, into wisdom, understanding, and even joy.” - Paul Ricoeur
The universal inheritance of Adam’s choice is death, not sin. Immersion in the world is not punishment, it is education.
… [Jesus Christ] positioned himself to be our spiritual Father and to reunite us with our Heavenly Family, committing himself with unparalleled devotion to the project of our return.
The Restoration reclaims Christ’s Atonement as an act of healing. It reconstitutes us as whole beings by transmuting the damage and pain endured in life’s educative crucible into sanctifying suffering that expands our capacity to receive and give love. Then Jesus invites us to share in his work of healing and saving.
Salvation is the culmination of our richer incorporation into the heavenly family of celestial beings, in a healed and sanctified condition.
In the early Latter-day Saint church, members formally repeated the terms of the covenant at water’s edge (presumably from Mosiah 18).”
The assumption of the terrible burden of individual and collective human suffering and death empowered Christ to release mankind from both. The full extent of his sacrifice was accomplished by his voluntary experience of the most profound consequences of human misery and suffering.
In the most sublime irony of all history, it was the emptiness of the Easter tomb—the words “he is not here”—that signaled the full and continuing presence of Christ in the world.
“What would this world’s inhabitants pay to know that Heavenly Parents are reaching across . . . stream and mountains and deserts anxious to hold them close.” - Jeffrey R. Holland
… the word often translated as save is more aptly rendered heal. Jesus healed the blind, healed the girl of the plague, and healed the woman with the issue of blood. In other words, rather than render the Messiah’s title of soter as Savior, we could with equal linguistic justification call him Jesus Christ, Son of God, Healer of the World. One virtue of such a substitution is that healing signals the beginning of a glorious journey now unfolding, while saving implies its end. And we are all very much in eternity’s morning. In Joseph’s favorite biblical translation, the word for Savior is das Heiland. Heil is from the verb heilen and means “to heal.” Land denotes a geographical location. Das Heiland could, therefore, be translated correctly as “place of healing.” In other words, our place of healing is Christ.
Woundedness- wording changed to blindedness and then to wickedness. 1 Nephi 13:32 This is a disturbing shift we as humans are prone to make. God’s most compassionate and benevolent facets have been “kept back” due to the removal of the “plain and most precious parts” of the gospel. Thus bereft, the scriptures we inherited tragically misrepresent a divine nature that Jacob 5, with its mourning, ever-solicitous Gardener, and Moses 7, with Enoch’s account of a weeping God the Father, restore. Our tendency… is to move from seeing ourselves as wounded to calling our condition blindness, and then removing mercy and aggravating circumstances from the equation altogether and dwelling on our supposed “wickedness.”
“As the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ views disease in His sheep as a condition that needs treatment, care, and compassion. This shepherd, our Good Shepherd, finds joy in seeing His diseased sheep progress toward healing. The Savior foretold that He would “feed his flock like a shepherd, … bind up that which [is] broken, and … strengthen that which [is] sick.” - Elder Dale G. Renlund
Succumbing to despair, not wickedness, is the temptation of the tender hearted.
Struggling under the weight of oppression, Alma’s young flock pleaded for heavenly aid. “And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them,” invoking the exact language of their covenant. The Healer promised to “ease [their] burdens,” “visit [them] in their afflictions,” and provide “comfort.”
It is in the wastelands of our lives that love is to be given and found. Only then is our shared mourning a genuine compassion, a “shared suffering”’ only then does our comforting emerge from a place of empathic knowledge and authenticity.
Indeed, true religion should frustrate our plans, reshape our short-term desires, break our habitual ways of responding to what is instinctual and natural in order to move us in the direction of the self that yearns for what Christ calls the more abundant life.
… the purpose of education—moral and mortal—is always to entice us to move beyond the familiar and the comfortable, the pedestrian and the banal, into new, unfamiliar and uncomfortable places. … We cannot trust that we are the best judges of what is most needful for our growth toward godliness.
… our deepest healing seldom comes in the ways or modes that we envision. What we think we need to be happy and whole is not always what the Healer knows we need to be happy and whole.
That the Creator of the world, the Divine Son, worked a net, slept off his weariness, ate fish and loaves, and wept over Lazarus imbues such human actions with holiness.
And so the sacrament commemorates Christ’s resurrected body, even as it signifies the promise of our own.
Our Lord is like the mother of Wendell Berry’s poem, whose forgiveness is “so complete” that “I wonder sometimes if it did not precede my wrong.”
Satan, in fact, is the Hebrew word for accuser. Accusatory judgement is Satan’s role, not Christ’s.
Compassion grows along the path of discipleship. “The nearer we get to our Heavenly Father the more are we disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back.” - Joseph Smith
“Why then do people get married?” “Because we need a witness for our lives.” You’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I love you and I will notice. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.’
It is in this shadow ground of indecision, of yearning and heart-struggle, hope and doubt, that the Lord beholds us, and loves us. And who of us is not in this same no-man’s-land, caught as we all are between our initial, probing, tentative steps toward Christ and a life of total commitment and selflessness and faith.
Paul teaches such a version of judgment, when he writes to the Corinthians that “being judged, we are corrected by the Lord, that we not be condemned.” Judgment prevents condemnation, it does not precede it. Judgment is an assist in recognizing our true condition in order that we may improve it, not suffer from it. This moment of coming to oneself, Jacob describes as coming to a “perfect [complete] knowledge of ourselves.
Like the authority to administer the institutional Church, which is predicated upon noncoercive principles of love and persuasion, the ability to save and redeem the human family relies upon love’s irresistible pull.
As President Joseph F. Smith testified, Christ’s work is not completed upon our passing. Like the ever-patient, ever-persistent, ever-loving Tutor, the Savior does not consider his work completed until his words and actions find a way to permeate the core of each person’s wounded heart.
The most perfect form of love the universe has ever known is full realized in the Christ of the Restoration. Encountering that reality is the sole means of anchoring our faith in the Restoration on unassailable foundations, moving us from fragile faith to the durable discipleship of love. Only truth that is hard won, dearly bought, and firmly grasped can nourish and sustain us through the crucible of life, of doubt, of loss.
Quotes to remember:
“You could nove have reached the palm-groves unless you had experienced the harsh trials; you could not have reached the gentle springs without first having to overcome sadness and difficulties. … The education of the soul is an age-long spiritual adventure, beginning in this life and continuing after death.” - Origen, the first systematic theologian the primitive church produced
“God’s omnipotence lies in what we have quoted elsewhere as the divine power “to alchemist suffering, tragedy, and loss, into wisdom, understanding, and even joy.” - Paul Ricoeur
The universal inheritance of Adam’s choice is death, not sin. Immersion in the world is not punishment, it is education.
… [Jesus Christ] positioned himself to be our spiritual Father and to reunite us with our Heavenly Family, committing himself with unparalleled devotion to the project of our return.
The Restoration reclaims Christ’s Atonement as an act of healing. It reconstitutes us as whole beings by transmuting the damage and pain endured in life’s educative crucible into sanctifying suffering that expands our capacity to receive and give love. Then Jesus invites us to share in his work of healing and saving.
Salvation is the culmination of our richer incorporation into the heavenly family of celestial beings, in a healed and sanctified condition.
In the early Latter-day Saint church, members formally repeated the terms of the covenant at water’s edge (presumably from Mosiah 18).”
The assumption of the terrible burden of individual and collective human suffering and death empowered Christ to release mankind from both. The full extent of his sacrifice was accomplished by his voluntary experience of the most profound consequences of human misery and suffering.
In the most sublime irony of all history, it was the emptiness of the Easter tomb—the words “he is not here”—that signaled the full and continuing presence of Christ in the world.
“What would this world’s inhabitants pay to know that Heavenly Parents are reaching across . . . stream and mountains and deserts anxious to hold them close.” - Jeffrey R. Holland
… the word often translated as save is more aptly rendered heal. Jesus healed the blind, healed the girl of the plague, and healed the woman with the issue of blood. In other words, rather than render the Messiah’s title of soter as Savior, we could with equal linguistic justification call him Jesus Christ, Son of God, Healer of the World. One virtue of such a substitution is that healing signals the beginning of a glorious journey now unfolding, while saving implies its end. And we are all very much in eternity’s morning. In Joseph’s favorite biblical translation, the word for Savior is das Heiland. Heil is from the verb heilen and means “to heal.” Land denotes a geographical location. Das Heiland could, therefore, be translated correctly as “place of healing.” In other words, our place of healing is Christ.
Woundedness- wording changed to blindedness and then to wickedness. 1 Nephi 13:32 This is a disturbing shift we as humans are prone to make. God’s most compassionate and benevolent facets have been “kept back” due to the removal of the “plain and most precious parts” of the gospel. Thus bereft, the scriptures we inherited tragically misrepresent a divine nature that Jacob 5, with its mourning, ever-solicitous Gardener, and Moses 7, with Enoch’s account of a weeping God the Father, restore. Our tendency… is to move from seeing ourselves as wounded to calling our condition blindness, and then removing mercy and aggravating circumstances from the equation altogether and dwelling on our supposed “wickedness.”
“As the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ views disease in His sheep as a condition that needs treatment, care, and compassion. This shepherd, our Good Shepherd, finds joy in seeing His diseased sheep progress toward healing. The Savior foretold that He would “feed his flock like a shepherd, … bind up that which [is] broken, and … strengthen that which [is] sick.” - Elder Dale G. Renlund
Succumbing to despair, not wickedness, is the temptation of the tender hearted.
Struggling under the weight of oppression, Alma’s young flock pleaded for heavenly aid. “And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them,” invoking the exact language of their covenant. The Healer promised to “ease [their] burdens,” “visit [them] in their afflictions,” and provide “comfort.”
It is in the wastelands of our lives that love is to be given and found. Only then is our shared mourning a genuine compassion, a “shared suffering”’ only then does our comforting emerge from a place of empathic knowledge and authenticity.
Indeed, true religion should frustrate our plans, reshape our short-term desires, break our habitual ways of responding to what is instinctual and natural in order to move us in the direction of the self that yearns for what Christ calls the more abundant life.
… the purpose of education—moral and mortal—is always to entice us to move beyond the familiar and the comfortable, the pedestrian and the banal, into new, unfamiliar and uncomfortable places. … We cannot trust that we are the best judges of what is most needful for our growth toward godliness.
… our deepest healing seldom comes in the ways or modes that we envision. What we think we need to be happy and whole is not always what the Healer knows we need to be happy and whole.
That the Creator of the world, the Divine Son, worked a net, slept off his weariness, ate fish and loaves, and wept over Lazarus imbues such human actions with holiness.
And so the sacrament commemorates Christ’s resurrected body, even as it signifies the promise of our own.
Our Lord is like the mother of Wendell Berry’s poem, whose forgiveness is “so complete” that “I wonder sometimes if it did not precede my wrong.”
Satan, in fact, is the Hebrew word for accuser. Accusatory judgement is Satan’s role, not Christ’s.
Compassion grows along the path of discipleship. “The nearer we get to our Heavenly Father the more are we disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back.” - Joseph Smith
“Why then do people get married?” “Because we need a witness for our lives.” You’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I love you and I will notice. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.’
It is in this shadow ground of indecision, of yearning and heart-struggle, hope and doubt, that the Lord beholds us, and loves us. And who of us is not in this same no-man’s-land, caught as we all are between our initial, probing, tentative steps toward Christ and a life of total commitment and selflessness and faith.
Paul teaches such a version of judgment, when he writes to the Corinthians that “being judged, we are corrected by the Lord, that we not be condemned.” Judgment prevents condemnation, it does not precede it. Judgment is an assist in recognizing our true condition in order that we may improve it, not suffer from it. This moment of coming to oneself, Jacob describes as coming to a “perfect [complete] knowledge of ourselves.
Like the authority to administer the institutional Church, which is predicated upon noncoercive principles of love and persuasion, the ability to save and redeem the human family relies upon love’s irresistible pull.
As President Joseph F. Smith testified, Christ’s work is not completed upon our passing. Like the ever-patient, ever-persistent, ever-loving Tutor, the Savior does not consider his work completed until his words and actions find a way to permeate the core of each person’s wounded heart.
The most perfect form of love the universe has ever known is full realized in the Christ of the Restoration. Encountering that reality is the sole means of anchoring our faith in the Restoration on unassailable foundations, moving us from fragile faith to the durable discipleship of love. Only truth that is hard won, dearly bought, and firmly grasped can nourish and sustain us through the crucible of life, of doubt, of loss.
November 19, 2023
Gorgeous and illuminating
January 15, 2020
This book is more about the true character of God than a how-to book on healing. Throughout, it compares aspects of early Christian theology to modern day revelation and restoration. It's interesting to be reading Augustine's Confessions while reading this. Among others, Augustine greatly influenced Christian religious thinking over centuries.
Some early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints brought some not-quite-true, puritanical, subtle religious traditions and belief-systems with them. This book explains some of these ideas trickled down to the present. We are not born evil as Augustine would say. We do not believe in original sin. Modern-day revelation tells us babies are innocent. Adam and Eve made a wise and necessary choice so they could progress and know the difference between good and evil. Every person born on this earth chose to follow Jesus Christ in the pre-mortal world. God isn't out to punish us. He doesn't condemn or judge us harshly. We are His children.
Modern day revelation tells us God has a body. The members of the godhead are three separate beings, not one amorphous entity. We have Heavenly Parents- a Father and a Mother and were born in their image. Jesus Christ is more of a comforter than a lawyerly advocate who defends us in front of Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father is truly our Father, not a mean old condemning judge. He wants our salvation and joy. He wants us to come home. Religion is about growth, becoming the best we can be, not out to control us, catch us for every little fault, or send us to Hell. We can't earn our way to heaven, yet are asked to do all we can to follow the example of Jesus Christ. We don't have to do it alone.
God does heal us. He forgives far beyond what we imagine possible. He loves infinitely, much more than human capability, much more than we can love each other.
I have long believed that Jesus Christ's sacrifice saves us from death and sin. I have hope in the resurrection. I really like peace of mind. Joy is awesome. Forgiveness from sin and the ability to change with God's help is real. Those have been big motivators in my life. I have lived a religious life for those reasons. This book explains that not only does the atonement of Jesus Christ redeem and repair us, which gives us peace and joy, but through baptism we enter the gate to God's "Kin-dom" not just His kingdom. We are adopted into His family with the promise of "greater and more perfect gifts."
The gospel truly is about family and love. From now on I'm going to try to be more focused on love and eternal relationships than on perfecting myself. I'm sure as I do that I'll feel even more peace and joy.
Some early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints brought some not-quite-true, puritanical, subtle religious traditions and belief-systems with them. This book explains some of these ideas trickled down to the present. We are not born evil as Augustine would say. We do not believe in original sin. Modern-day revelation tells us babies are innocent. Adam and Eve made a wise and necessary choice so they could progress and know the difference between good and evil. Every person born on this earth chose to follow Jesus Christ in the pre-mortal world. God isn't out to punish us. He doesn't condemn or judge us harshly. We are His children.
Modern day revelation tells us God has a body. The members of the godhead are three separate beings, not one amorphous entity. We have Heavenly Parents- a Father and a Mother and were born in their image. Jesus Christ is more of a comforter than a lawyerly advocate who defends us in front of Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father is truly our Father, not a mean old condemning judge. He wants our salvation and joy. He wants us to come home. Religion is about growth, becoming the best we can be, not out to control us, catch us for every little fault, or send us to Hell. We can't earn our way to heaven, yet are asked to do all we can to follow the example of Jesus Christ. We don't have to do it alone.
God does heal us. He forgives far beyond what we imagine possible. He loves infinitely, much more than human capability, much more than we can love each other.
I have long believed that Jesus Christ's sacrifice saves us from death and sin. I have hope in the resurrection. I really like peace of mind. Joy is awesome. Forgiveness from sin and the ability to change with God's help is real. Those have been big motivators in my life. I have lived a religious life for those reasons. This book explains that not only does the atonement of Jesus Christ redeem and repair us, which gives us peace and joy, but through baptism we enter the gate to God's "Kin-dom" not just His kingdom. We are adopted into His family with the promise of "greater and more perfect gifts."
The gospel truly is about family and love. From now on I'm going to try to be more focused on love and eternal relationships than on perfecting myself. I'm sure as I do that I'll feel even more peace and joy.
November 21, 2018
Read at the same time as The Crucible of Doubt - that was a happy "accident". Loved this book so much and the beginning surprised me.
Some favorite quotes:
"A proximate, approachable Christ is a wonderful thing, but not at the cost of losing the Father of absolute love."
"...we know we do not earn heaven; we co-create heaven, and we do so by participating in the celestial relationships that are its essence....This is why mercy "is twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives, and him that [receives]."
"In committed relationships, "you are promising to care for one person...to care about them in everything: in the good things, in the bad things, in the terrible things, in the mundane things. All the time! Every day! You're saying, 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I love you and I will notice. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.'"
"...Mark seems to suggest, that Christ, beholding us, loves us."
"God's infinite love and patience will prevail and will wear down the resistance of even the most rebellious souls." (I love that God isn't using force - He is love.)
"We feel the pull of premortal realms and resonate with the truth that life is educative, purposeful, and designed for our growth. We adore a God who does not recoil in jealous insecurity because 'man is become as one of us'".
"The apostle Paul likewise praised the gifts of the gospel, but realized the imperfect hold that they can have on discipleship. "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away," he acknowledged. Only charity, said Paul, never falters. Only "the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ," never ceases."
"Only charity never fails us. Only Jesus Christ the Healer is a sure foundation. Because they are the same. The most perfect form of love the universe has ever known is fully realized in the Christ of the Restoration. Encountering that reality is the sole means of anchoring our faith....on unassailable foundations, moving us from fragile faith to the durable discipleship of love."
"We love him because he first loved us. With a depth and beauty beyond all imagining."
Some favorite quotes:
"A proximate, approachable Christ is a wonderful thing, but not at the cost of losing the Father of absolute love."
"...we know we do not earn heaven; we co-create heaven, and we do so by participating in the celestial relationships that are its essence....This is why mercy "is twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives, and him that [receives]."
"In committed relationships, "you are promising to care for one person...to care about them in everything: in the good things, in the bad things, in the terrible things, in the mundane things. All the time! Every day! You're saying, 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I love you and I will notice. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.'"
"...Mark seems to suggest, that Christ, beholding us, loves us."
"God's infinite love and patience will prevail and will wear down the resistance of even the most rebellious souls." (I love that God isn't using force - He is love.)
"We feel the pull of premortal realms and resonate with the truth that life is educative, purposeful, and designed for our growth. We adore a God who does not recoil in jealous insecurity because 'man is become as one of us'".
"The apostle Paul likewise praised the gifts of the gospel, but realized the imperfect hold that they can have on discipleship. "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away," he acknowledged. Only charity, said Paul, never falters. Only "the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ," never ceases."
"Only charity never fails us. Only Jesus Christ the Healer is a sure foundation. Because they are the same. The most perfect form of love the universe has ever known is fully realized in the Christ of the Restoration. Encountering that reality is the sole means of anchoring our faith....on unassailable foundations, moving us from fragile faith to the durable discipleship of love."
"We love him because he first loved us. With a depth and beauty beyond all imagining."
January 21, 2018
Can't recommend this enough. Givens puts into words and organizes many of the disparate thoughts I've had over the last year, the preeminent one being that "salvation" is more about becoming and as the author puts it "we do not earn heaven; we co-create heaven; and we do so by participating in the celestial relationships that are its essence.". Admittedly, I loved how concise it was. I was amazed at how much the author was able to pack into 120 or so pages. Like I said, can't recommend it enough.
A few favorite quotes:
"The great mission of the Saints was to organize a nucleus of Heaven, Joseph preached...Zion-building is not preparation for heaven. It is heaven, in embryo. The process of sanctifying disciples of Christ, constituting them into a community of love and harmony does not qualify individuals for heaven; sanctification and celestial relationality are the essence of heaven."
"One must help others are do good works, not for saving one's own soul, but for love, the union of men, for the bringing of their souls together in the kingdom of God. Love for man is a value in itself, the quality of goodness is imminent in it. (Berdyaev)"
"He first loved us. There is perhaps no greater yearning than the human hunger to be known, acknowledged, and witnessed."
"Heaven is not a reward for merit or a repair of an Adamic catastrophe; it is an eternal sociality of celestial beings, existing, striving, and creatively engaging in loving relation."
"Within our mortal limits, we are asked to imitate [Christ's] acts of infinite empathy. If we deprive ourselves of sharing the crosses of our fellow pilgrims, we have impeded the only principles by which heavenly society (heaven) is created."
A few favorite quotes:
"The great mission of the Saints was to organize a nucleus of Heaven, Joseph preached...Zion-building is not preparation for heaven. It is heaven, in embryo. The process of sanctifying disciples of Christ, constituting them into a community of love and harmony does not qualify individuals for heaven; sanctification and celestial relationality are the essence of heaven."
"One must help others are do good works, not for saving one's own soul, but for love, the union of men, for the bringing of their souls together in the kingdom of God. Love for man is a value in itself, the quality of goodness is imminent in it. (Berdyaev)"
"He first loved us. There is perhaps no greater yearning than the human hunger to be known, acknowledged, and witnessed."
"Heaven is not a reward for merit or a repair of an Adamic catastrophe; it is an eternal sociality of celestial beings, existing, striving, and creatively engaging in loving relation."
"Within our mortal limits, we are asked to imitate [Christ's] acts of infinite empathy. If we deprive ourselves of sharing the crosses of our fellow pilgrims, we have impeded the only principles by which heavenly society (heaven) is created."
October 12, 2020
Incredibly academic, and doctrinally inspiring. I wasn’t sure what to respect when my mom recommended this to my siblings and me, but this opened my eyes to so many truths about Christ that I hadn’t considered. Among all of them, this stands out: the Christ we believe in in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is boldly wonderful, encouraging, engaged and enabling for us to achieve the joint-heirship promised us in Romans 8:17.
May 9, 2020
While the first part of the book is deep in history and harder to read, it laid a little part of the foundation to help explain the struggles we have with how we believe. The message particularly in the last chapter is excellent, and breaks away from some of the norms that are thought and taught. Very well written.
November 4, 2022
This was lovely, and FG's/TG's recast of LDS "Plan of Salvation" claims in more historico-cultural-conscious language is ultra helpful in comprehending the appeal of Mormon Christianity. I was hoping for a little more on Atonement theory? But if you're looking for broad strokes, this does a nice job!
January 29, 2025
I thought there were some really terrific insights about the Atonement of Jesus Christ as well as about the Plan of Salvation. My only complaints were that the author sometimes made very broad generalizations about what 'Mormonism' teaches that I didn't know we actually taught and seemed to be on the fringe. Other than that I thought it was a very intriguing book. (AUDIBLE)
April 29, 2023
Allllll the stars. This book has changed my life. My understanding of Jesus and who He is and what He did for me has completely changed. What a blessing to have my perspective shifted! I hope everyone will read this.
December 15, 2023
Truly one of the most remarkable gospel related books I have ever read. Will definitely read it again.
January 24, 2020
This went right along with some ideas I'd been discovering on my own with my scripture study and I loved diving deeper into the ancient Christian origins of those ideas. I hadn't known the details about the split between Eastern/Western Christian philosophies, which was fascinating.
It's also helped me to put up a better framework around why I get frustrated by certain decisions and positions that are common within the church. I think it was best highlighted in the difference between a sovereign God and a Father God and what our loyalties and responsibilities towards both would look like.
I just loaned a friend the Givens's earlier work "The God Who Weeps" and I think I need to buy this and loan it to her as well.
It's also helped me to put up a better framework around why I get frustrated by certain decisions and positions that are common within the church. I think it was best highlighted in the difference between a sovereign God and a Father God and what our loyalties and responsibilities towards both would look like.
I just loaned a friend the Givens's earlier work "The God Who Weeps" and I think I need to buy this and loan it to her as well.
March 22, 2018
This was a very deep doctrine book! I feel like I need to read it by more times to understand many of the words and philosophical things they said. However, the point of the book, the love and testimony of our savior Jesus Christ was beautiful. I felt like I had to sift through many unnecessary parts to get to the heart of the book. In the end I did enjoy it and highlighted many parts and I believe it added to my testimony.
May 9, 2020
Another excellent book by the Givens couple. I’d like to reread this with my own copy of the book so I can mark it up with a yellow pencil. I love how close this book helps me feel to Christ. I also appreciated how our Heavenly Mother was mentioned much more often in this book than in “The God Who Weeps.”
July 18, 2018
This book was a great view into the various roles of the living Christ and how His doctrines became varied after His departure. Through the Restoration the perfect, complete, living Christ has come into view. I appreciated this book’s clarifications regarding the love of God, worthiness, and the collaboration that we can experience with our Savior daily. I loved most the quotation of Joseph Smith: “Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive...The Lord Almighty has...so firmly established the dispensation of the fullness of the priesthood in the last days, that all the powers of earth and hell can never prevail against it.”
August 28, 2018
One of the best books I have read on truly understanding our Father in Heaven and Christ. The Givens made me think. They challenged preconceived notions and made me want to immediately read the book again. In fact, I read it 1.5 times, going over pages again and chasing scriptural references.
The language was poetry, the history of Christianity well researched and documented, the insights revelatory.
The language was poetry, the history of Christianity well researched and documented, the insights revelatory.
February 2, 2018
I love this book! It is beautifully written. I will probably read it again just to soak in all the information that is in it. I would highly recommend this book.
May 18, 2018
This book was eloquently written and well presented. I loved their command of vocabulary and detailed descriptions. Highly recommend.
September 2, 2019
This is seriously one of the best books I've ever read on the character of Jesus Christ and his role as Savior and Redeemer of mankind. I simply loved it! It's one of those books that keeps you thinking about it for the next several days, weeks and months.
August 20, 2021
I love all things Givens. They always produce excellent work. I absolutely loved this book. The context, the insights, the new perspectives or offers are all wonderful. I absolutely recommend it.
October 2, 2025
I do love their other books more but this was still interesting. I always appreciate the quotes from poets, ancient philosophers and theologians mixed with modern-day prophets and scriptures.
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