I don’t know how much different Scherer’s writing—which bugged me in Vol. 2—changed for VOl. 3, but this period of recent history was fascinating to me and I couldn’t get enough of this book.

This volume captures Community of Christ becoming the denomination it is today, with all of the joys and struggles included therein. It was exciting to see the church struggle and adapt and grow—it made me happy to be part of this community. However, Scherer also doesn’t shy away from the struggles and real problems faced by the church during this time—many of which continue today. I feel responsibility and pressure to help the church survive and thrive, even though it scares me.

I enjoyed reading this book but sometimes struggled with it. The Reorganization era of Community of Christ history remains largely new to me—though I have enjoyed reading “Pragmatic Prophet”—but I struggled some with the organization of the book.

In short,, I enjoyed the content but it felt sometimes that the book was a dumping ground for relevant content rather than the weaving of that content into a clear, cohesive narrative. I didn’t feel like I always understood Scherer’s structural choices for the book, and that got in the way of really enjoying it.

I have been meaning to read this for quite some time, as it is the first volume in the most recent official history of Community of Christ. I’m also looking forward to the next two volumes, since they cover history that I am not familiar with, but it was especially interesting to read a Community of Christ perspective on the 1830-1844 era.

I appreciated the frankness and openness of the volume—it’s impossible to imagine an LDS version of this book taking the same approach. As open as the Saints books are compared to previous takes on LDS history, they don’t compare to this. My only complain about the book is the sometimes-stilted writing and the seeming tangents—ti was sometimes hard to tell why particular subjects got the focus they did.