The Rational Restoration

Reframes in the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding

By: Jonathan Neville

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

This is the May 2024 Kindle edition.

Latter-day Saints, along with their friends and their critics, face plenty of challenges in today's world. In this book, we consider new perspectives on Church history, doctrines, and practices that will surprise and delight you.

The dozens of reframes in this book will enhance understanding and goodwill among everyone interested in the Restoration—believers, critics, and curious bystanders alike—by shifting consciousness toward unity.

By “Restoration” I refer to the specific Restoration movement started by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, based on their truth claims about divine intervention leading to the formation of a church in 1830. [This is distinct from other Christian Restoration movements that preceded and followed what they started, but it includes all the groups who accept what they started.]

To me, the Restoration is the fulfillment of centuries of Christian hopes and faith. It offers what most people around the world seek: peace, prosperity, and purpose.

This book originated as a series of reframes derived from my previous books that describe a rational approach to the Restoration. It includes reframes on rational living, church generally, church history, scripture, mortality, critics and apologists, and more.

The reframes in my books offer a way to “think different,” to quote the old Apple slogan. I wrote the books partly to respond to modern narratives developed by faithful Latter-day Saint scholars—apologists—that have made the Restoration less rational, and therefore less credible.

Reframes are prompted by conversations, contemplations, and even contentions.

Contention—strong disagreement over beliefs, ideas, and values—is driven by the human compulsion to prevail by converting, persuading, or compelling others to change their minds because, after all, we are “right.” But, as Joseph Smith observed, “all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions.”

We all want less of that in the world.

In this book, we’ll discuss some practical ways to mitigate and avoid contention. Instead of papering over differences, we want to solve for clarity, charity and understanding.