Often Latter-day Saints forget how truly amazing/shocking our claims are, and such should always be remembered whenever we discuss Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the Restoration of the Gospel, and other topics with those who are not Latter-day Saints. The following from a recent volume on the topic of “Mormonism” really sums up how fantastic our claims truly are:
Mormonism does not simply present another entry in the parade of denominational diversity; it poses a genuine epistemological dilemma. Mormons sometimes tell their own origin story so often that they forget how fantastic it is. This same can largely be said of the founding narratives involving Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, but the distance of centuries has elevated those stories even for skeptics to the respectable level of myth. One simply cannot square the orthodox narrative of Mormonism's founding with modern notions of evidence-based inquiry and naturalistic rationalism. For the most part, the proximity of the history, the rich trove of historical documents, and perhaps most of all the claim of the plates' tangibility have all prevented the miraculous beginnings of Mormonism to being reduced (or elevated) to the status of myth. The Joseph Smith story thus confronts the modern hearer with an uncomfortable set of questions: Is there a world of possibilities beyond what we can apprehend with our natural senses, and if so, is there room in that world for a farm boy to see God, talk to angels, unearth gold plates, and produce new scripture? Mormonism is the product of people, first by the handful and eventually by the millions, answering yes to those questions. (Patrick Q. Mason, What is Mormonism? A Student’s Introduction [New York: Routledge, 2017], 38)
Indeed, our claims are all-or-nothing. Either The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true and living Church upon the face of the earth (D&C 1:30) or it is a false Church promulgating a false Gospel under the anathema of Gal 1:6-9. In spite of attempts by many inside and outside the Church, there is simply no middle ground.