Abstract
This essay might seem inappropriate for this volume, but it is not. Krister Stendahl is particularly distinguished by a catholicity of mind and spirit which enables him to look with understanding, sympathy, and empathy on all sorts and conditions in what he once unpejoratively called “God's menagerie of religions.” That Mormons do not belong to the main bodies of Christians does not exclude them from his purview. But apart from this, the Mormons are in fact highly germane to the theme of this volume. Uniqueness is always hard to substantiate: Christians, Jews, and Gentiles have been related in many varied and complex ways. But there seems to be no parallel to the way in which Mormons—while claiming to be Christians—assert as well that they are genealogically connected with Jews and that they are therefore physically a rediscovered, restored, and reinterpreted “Israel.” As far as I am aware they constitute a very special, if not unique, case of Christians among Jews and Gentiles since by implication they have redefined all three of these terms. This is the justification for the inclusion of this essay in this volume. We here reflect on one aspect of Mormon life: their fixation of their own “canon.”
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