Editor’s Preface
Robert K. Thomas’s personal copy of the Book of Mormon is filled with handwritten notes. They include classical and literary references (“Aristotle,” “Hume,” “Joyce,” “Bergson,” “Eliot”), personal reflections (“We always class a single miracle as coincidental”), doctrinal insights (“Christ bought us!”), and rhetorical analysis (“Subtlety of characterization [is] one of the real charms of the B of M”). This combination of scholarship, personal awareness, and spiritual commitment makes reading the notes well worth the effort. The talks contained in this volume offer a similar reward, although they are naturally more polished than any marginal notes might be.
Like Thomas’s Book of Mormon notations, the talks collected here represent a synthesis of the secular and the sacred. Through that synthesis, Thomas encourages us to become grown-ups. “Goals without Goads” is a superior example of his approach. In this talk, Thomas urges scholars to “add gospel insights to carefully honed, fundamental skills.” He argues that as we integrate secular learning and the gospel, we will freely obey God and escape the shackles of selfishness. Such informed obedience is the difference between being an adult and a self-absorbed child. In addition, such obedience provides us the opportunity to experience joy.
In keeping with this theme of becoming true adults, Thomas regularly emphasizes the need for honest self-evaluation. In “A Compound in One,” for example, Thomas provides a trenchant and highly compact (just two pages!) examination of what he labels “negative gifts.” This talk was given during Thanksgiving week, and Thomas encourages his audience to be grateful for three seemingly negative gifts: shame, poverty, and uncertainty. He demonstrates how each of these gifts can help us engage in honest self-evaluation. In true Thomas fashion, he uses his own weaknesses to illustrate how these gifts work. As these gifts provide an eternal perspective, Thomas argues, we will make the changes necessary to become true disciples of Christ.
If we are to become disciples, Thomas believes, we must understand both the power and limits of language. “Semantics and the Gospel” provides the most extensive exploration of this theme. In that talk, Thomas describes how people use words as weapons and how difficult defending oneself against verbal assault can be. He then shares a favorite story about the time he and his wife spent as counselors in a home for so-called “disturbed” children. There, the home’s director pleaded that the Thomases seriously consider how labels for the children determine adults’ attitudes toward them. Following this story, Thomas describes how human language may confuse attitudes toward “spiritual mysteries.” Among these mysteries, he considers the question of how a perfect God can also progress—a question with which he struggled as a young man. He suggests that because he does not know what the Lord understands either by “progress” or “perfection,” the progress/perfection conundrum is little more than “linguistic shenanigans.” Thomas concludes by asking that we immerse ourselves in sacred words: ritual language and the scriptures. These words—and particularly the ultimate Word, Jesus Christ—help us constantly rededicate ourselves to being faithful to our covenants. Such faithfulness is a mark of adulthood.
As I have read these talks, I have come to understand why nearly every page of Thomas’s personal Book of Mormon contains handwritten notes. Thomas reads scripture with a pen, bringing his learning and his faith to the task. He does the same in these talks, employing gentle humor and relentlessly honest self-evaluation to help audiences see what he sees. And what does he see? The opportunity for all of us to develop a mature relationship with God, a relationship that will allow us to return to God’s presence as full-fledged adults. For that reason, I hope we can all follow Thomas’s example and read these talks with a pen. The reward will be well worth the effort.
