The Sanctity of Dissent

by
Paul James Toscano

Signature Books, Salt Lake City,
1994.

Table of Contents:

Epilogue

The following prayer was given as the closing prayer at the B. H. Roberts Society meeting held at the University of Utah on Friday, 17 September 1993.

Gracious Father and Blessed Mother: What a strange picture we must present before your eyes. We know our attitudes are generally unacceptable, our voices are alternate, and our beliefs are unorthodox. We are, on the whole, a diverse and motley crew. What unites us is hard to say—except, perhaps, our pain, our love for each other, and our desires and longings for truth, love, justice, and mercy.

As for the Restoration, it seems to be in such a hopeless state. And those who should see this most seem to notice it least. It is as if you have forsaken us.

O Lord and Lady, draw near to our community again. Let some of the eternal fire of your everlasting burnings peel the whitewash off the church. Pull back the draperies. Let in the light. Shake out the dust covers. Rid us of the partitions and the bureaucratic little cubicles. Tear down the false ceilings and make the grand old scrollwork visible again. Retrieve the forgotten arts and return the beautiful books. Send to lead us kind, wise men of patience and faith and [p.184] women full of knowledge and no nonsense. Restore our appetites and passions, our faith and hope. Fill us with benign contempt for mediocrity. Give us courage in the face of coercion. Forgive those who think we are their enemies. Forgive us our trespasses. Fill us with divine love. And when trials come—and we know they must—deliver us from evil.

For these things we pray with sincerity of heart through the intercession of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Paul James Toscano, a member of the Salt Lake City law firm of Woodbury & Kesler, has practiced law since 1978 and currently serves as Chapter 12 and Chapter 13 Standing Bankruptcy Trustee for the District of Utah.  He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Brigham Young University and his J.D. from the J. Reuben Clark Law School.  He is author / co-author of numerous articles and four books: Gospel Letters to a Mormon Missionary; Invisible Religion in the Public Schools: Secularism, Neutrality, and the Supreme Court; Music and the Broken Word (with Calvin Grondahl); and Strangers in Paradox: Explorations in Mormon Theology (with Margaret Merrill Toscano).  He is founder and co-president with Margaret of the Mormon Alliance, a non-profit corporation organized in 1992 to counter defamation of the spiritual abuse within the LDS church.  A 1963 convert from Catholicism, he was excommunicated on 19 September 1993 as one of the September Six.