An interesting article or two.

This article by Alan Wolfe, to be perfectly honest, stung a tiny bit, but compared to the stuff Slate.com published when Mitt Romney was all over the news in 2006 or so, it's positively harmless.

When Romney was toying with the idea of running for president a few years before the 2008 election, Jacob Weisberg wrote an article in which he opined that a Mormon could never be President of the United States and described Joseph Smith as an "obvious con man." At the time, Slate was my favorite news source and was quickly becoming my favorite website, but that article hurt my feelings so much I stopped reading it until fairly recently.

This past week, Slate has published a review of Grant Hardy's Understanding the Book of Mormon in addition to a commentary on the lack of good Mormon writers, and a photo slideshow that mostly depicts rehearsals for the Hill Cumorah Pageant.

I'm not sure why Slate is giving the Mormons a featured spot recently, but I very much appreciate the respectful tone Mr. Wolfe used when writing about Mr Hardy's book. Neither men are Mormon, but both had given the Book of Mormon a chance by reading it. It sounds like Hardy has studied the Book extensively, seeing as Understanding The Book of Mormon is meant to be an apologetic defense of its literary merit. I would be curious to know what portions of the Book of Mormon Wolfe read for this review, or if he read the whole thing. It sounded like he didn't enjoy the book very much, so I'm going to assume that he skipped at least 2 Nephi. Even Mormons skip those chapters a lot of the time.

Anyway, I was disappointed that the reviewer didn't see the same simple grace in the Book of Mormon that I see, or any of the humor. I really do love the Book of Mormon, but I can't fault too much those that find parts of it dry. I find lots of religious works dry. It did make me sad that Wolfe said he couldn't see any of the beauty that is found in lots of chapters in the Book of Mormon (He wrote, "The Book of Mormon has a structure. It does not sing.") I am curious if he read the Psalm of Nephi? Alma 32? The parable of the olive trees? Who knows if he did, but I honestly believe that parts of the Book of Mormon are just as elegant as the Bible, if not more so.

I doubt Hardy's book or Wolfe's review of it will convince very many people to read the Book of Mormon or keep the truly curious from giving it a try. What really makes me happy is how civil the whole thing was, really. I like to see intelligent Mormons and non-Mormons approaching Mormon culture and theology with tact and insight. Bravo, guys.