We all sort of "know" but still very often forget that God and religious and spiritual truths are couched in symbols, language, propositions, metaphors, stories, and ritual actions, meaning that, by definition, a religion's primary languages themselves are not meant to be taken literally. Words and stories and teachings are not the things in themselves but rather pointers toward them, guides for us to experience these beings and powers more directly and "learn" them for ourselves. In a provocative post a couple of weeks ago on the Rational Faiths blog, "Mormonism as 'Metaphor and Sacrament'," Benjamin Knoll introduced writings from scripture, a mystic, a Christian theologian that all made this point about the need to remember to not mistake the pointers for the real thing, to center in relationship with God/Spirit rather than the forms of language and praxis that are central in religious lives. From part of a quotation by Marcus Borg cited in the post: "The Christian life is about a relationship with the one whom the Bible both points to and mediates--namely, a relationship with God as disclosed through the Bible as metaphor and sacrament. To be Christian is to live within this tradition and let it do its transforming work among us." For Borg, a sacrament is "something visible and physical whereby the Spirit becomes present to us. A sacrament is a means of grace, a vehicle or vessel for the Spirit."

In this episode, Benjamin Knoll, Brian Hauglid, and Susan Meredith Hinckley join Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon to talk about this paradigm--and especially possibilities of it finding more of a home within Mormonism, for this might be quite helpful to many Latter-day Saints struggling for breathing room within a church culture that emphasizes literalness of most scriptural stories and various truth claims. The panel also evaluates the weaknesses of this model and drawbacks that many would see should too many church members come to hold this view. How might a "metaphorical and sacramental" view change one's interactions with the institutional church, with LDS scriptures, with our wards and branches, with various behavioral expectations in contemporary Mormonism? It's a lively discussion that we hope you will join in with in the comments section!