Good point, Jesse. What I meant was that articles are more popular when they say things that are perceived as flattery.
But as the old saying goes, one must be careful what one wishes for.
There's a subtle jab behind the "Mormons are obsessed with Christ" argument. While the author appears to argue that the Book of Mormon is the most Christ-centered book on the planet, this guy's fascination with Mormons has nothing to do with any possibility that the guy thinks the Mormons may be right. If anything, he quietly thinks the Book of Mormon is bogus.
Why?
The Book of Mormon provides "Another Testament of Jesus Christ," but as the man points out, The Book of Mormon is a little too interested in Jesus Christ.
How can that be?
Most of the Book of Mormon takes place in anticipation of Jesus Christ's birth. In that sense it's Another [Old] Testament. But unlike the Old Testament, it's not a volume of scripture mined by New Testament believers for figurative connections to Christ. If anything, it's quite explicit. It abounds with details about this yet-to-be-born savior of the world. Where Old Testament religion focused most of its efforts on the status of Israel, the Book of Mormon goes to great lengths to discuss all kinds of Christ-related information. Where prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel spoke allegorically, the messages of Lehi, Nephi and Abinadi are so obvious that there's no room for interpretation at all.
It's in that sense that Mormons are bigger Christians than most groups (maybe even him) because they actually believe the Christian message with a degree of literalism and acceptance that exceeds that of the average Christian, and certainly him.
Mormons accept Christ with an enthusiasm reminiscent of a big, friendly dog. For people like the author, such enthusiasm may not be warranted if the New Testament consists of one group's attempt to mine the Old Testament for anything supporting New Testament claims. Such attempts, while artful, have not been without controversy.
There are a fair number of scholars who would argue that the Old Testament doesn't really say anything about Jesus, that the New Testament Christians simply interpreted Hebrew passages to say what they, the early Christians, wanted to hear.
In the case of the Book of Mormon, it's not a matter of having faith that your particular spin on the Old Testament is doctrinal. For Mormons, it's about having faith that your book - which needs no spin to point to Christ - is true.
One might even argue that details have their own sedimentation patterns. Stories, like the fossil record, tend to start out simple and get more detailed the newer they are. In biology, you'd call it evolution; in literature, you'd call it embellishment.
He likes that word, embellishment.
The suggestion, left pregnant with possibility, is that the Book of Mormon's obsession with details makes it more likely something that came later rather than earlier.
The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, is predicated on an opposite set of assumptions: That details are actually lost in time. To Mormons, while it's always possible for someone to embellish an earlier account, it's also possible for the "plain and precious truths" to be lost and in need of a "restoration."
The seduction of the writer comes from getting Mormons to make a mental shift from a restorationist mindset to a liberal protestant point of view. It's a bit like the second- and third-Isaiah problem. Isaiah casts doubt on the validity of the Book of Mormon, but only if you don't believe in Isaiah. If you think one Isaiah didn't write "Isaiah," then the Book of Mormon's failure to make such distinctions - and its reference to an unbroken Isaiah (with a single author) is telling.
In essence, the first folks to find fault with the Book of Mormon are not Bible believers but Bible skeptics. The Book of Mormon has to be false because it makes the mistake of believing too much in the Bible. Stupid Mormons.
It's a cynical argument, one that blames Mormons for believing too much in a Bible, while also arguing that they read it the wrong way.
