Last Sunday, I attended a Latter-day Saint Elders Quorum meeting for the first time since March of 2020, when I taught Elders Quorum on the last Sunday before Latter-day Saint services shut down because of COVID. I had enjoyed most of the sacrament meeting (I took issue with some parts of some talks, but I have to admit that I miss the size, songs, and sense of community of Latter-day Saint services), but Elders Quorum turned out to be kind of a disappointment. Truth be told, I had been hoping that it was a Sunday School week, but I couldn’t remember which weeks are Sunday School and which are Elders Quorum/Relief Society after being out of practice for so long.

preface

A quick preface: This is a post that I originally wrote nearly two years ago for By Common Consent. Lately, it’s been bugging me that I don’t have a version of it up on my own site, and since I haven’t had a lot of time this week to write anything original, I’m going to repost this here.

This post elaborates on one of my favorite close readings of the Book of Mormon. It surprises me that in his criticism of the word “Mormon,” Russell Nelson seems to think that the name originates with the character named Mormon rather than the place that he’s named after (within the narrative of the Book of Mormon)—and the implicit reasons he’s named after that place. For years, I’ve been interested in the way that the history of the word “Mormon” within the narrative of the book that bears its name serves as a symbol of baptism; more recently, I’ve grown to appreciate the way that it refers more broadly to Christian redemption.