Review
Title: The Book of Mormon for The Least Of These, Volume 2
Author: Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Hemming Olsen
Publisher: BCC Press
Genre: Scripture Commentary
Year Published: 2022
Number of Pages: 400
Binding: Hardback & Trade Paperback
ISBN: Hardback, 978-1948218603; Paperback, 978-1948218580
Price: Hardback, 34.95; Paperback, 15.95
Reviewed by Heather Harris Bergevin for the Association for Mormon Letters
If you’ve already read the first of this marvelous study guide series, then you know that what you’re in for in this second portion is more of the same wonderful and thoughtful conceptualizations of scripture. If not, let me explain the basics. In The Book of Mormon for The Least of These, Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Hemming Olsen are creating a new and beautiful way to read and analyze scripture from an empathetic standpoint. This is very needed, as to my mind, all things should be done from the position of empathy and the compassionate love we think of as Charity, the Pure Love of Christ, which is our ultimate goal as humans to be able to embody. We are working to become closer to Zion and the Unity Christ’s love offers us. Unfortunately, more and more youth are getting wound up in computer algorithms meant to steer them towards white supremacy and towards becoming another “Me” generation. The Book of Mormon for The Least of These is an excellent source for those seeking to connect themselves or their struggling loved ones to Christ’s teachings on love, compassion, and empathy.
I recently had an LDS friend explain to me that King Benjamin’s Speech was “too political,” and it boggled my mind. It had become important to them to make sure that all of the scriptures on kindness, love, and service towards others be excised from their reading. As this leaves mostly the war chapters, a bunch of slavery, and less discussion of anything actually needed by the modern church, this worries me greatly. Of course, King Benjamin is political; he’s a political leader. He’s a premier example in the scriptures of what a leader of people should be, but increasingly threatening to those who do not want a leader who will lay down arms and, instead, take up a plowshare to dig in the garden alongside his people.
The best way to inoculate against those sorts of things is to proclaim your family actively against the things that are against Christ, such as being bigoted, racist, misogynistic, etc. By aligning your family with those things which promote Christ’s values of compassion, mercy, empathy, and service, you have a better chance that your children (and others) will know when they see those “default” negative stances in the world that they not only do not want to follow them, but hey will actively work against those worldly values, and instead align themselves with the values professed by Christ.
Yes, it is an increasingly radical viewpoint– to stand as a witness of Christ.
Yes, it’s complicated. Its complicated both individually and as a family to find worship materials that promote and help both adults and, when discussed in a family setting, youth with making those good decisions to not be swayed by the world. This book can help with that.
The Book of Mormon for the Least of These Vol. 2 is long and dense in all the best ways. It is not a book you read in one sitting; it’s designed to be read in segments alongside your regular daily reading of the Book of Mormon and to support enhancing your understanding. How does it enhance?
In general, for those of us who have read the scriptures repeatedly since childhood, our reading can become rather…rote. The answers we used to call Primary Answers become Seminary Answers, which become Sunday School answers. Everybody skips over verses that don’t seem that important, and being able to see those in a new light is important to critical thinking as an adult. We know it. We’ve been in this class before.
But here, besides being beautifully written and well thought through, each individual portion makes it possible for you to read either chapter by chapter or, in many instances, verse by verse through the second portion of the Book of Mormon. The BOM For the Least of These Vol. 2 begins with the Book of Mosiah. Here the reader is led through understandings such as that in Mosiah 8:20-21, where wisdom is given a female pronoun. This aligns with how she is spoken of in the Old Testament. Salleh and Olsen also point out that sometimes God is directly spoken of as He or indirectly in the same segment as She and that “God belongs…everywhere on the gender spectrum.” They explain that King Noah was using the over-taxing of the people in ornamentation and decoration of the buildings (as described in Mosiah 11), and therefore the buildings themselves were structurally unrighteous. Salleh and Olsen explain that in the Book of Alma, the land itself is a character and why emphasizing the name of the land is critical to the people who lived there. The understanding given in some of the “war chapters” is particularly interesting, with the explanation that Moroni’s leadership (Alma 49) “focuses on making the previously weak places strong. Fortifying these fragile places ultimately protects the entire society.”
Who will love For the Least of These: Anybody who is seeking to deepen their study of the Book of Mormon without being overwhelmed by extremely extensive jargon or getting bogged down in words. Reading this book as a companion with reading the Book of Mormon can help refocus the mind upon the things which are most critical and the way Christ would want these sections to be concentrated upon.
As we seek to shore up our own fragile society, having the chance to see sacred things in a new light can help us, both individually and as a Church. Reading The Book of Mormon for The Least of These can help to fortify Christ’s values of Faith, Hope, and Charity (being the pure love offered by Christ) in the home and in our Church and will, by extension, do the same in fortifying any previously weak places, with the intent to protect our society.