"Authority is adored as the dominant divine characteristic," Toscano alleges; "patriology blows unimpeded through the church like a cold wind, chilling compassion, hope, and faith." He worries that "unless there is a spiritual revival of mythic dimensions, Mormonism is doomed to resolve itself into yet another sect full of ethical pretension and xenophobic aspiration."

Considering himself a Latter-day Saint-in-exile, Toscano remains confident that Christian love may yet "overflow the banks of righteousness, sweep away respectability, turn dignity into mud, lay waste the levees of our vaunted invulnerability, and contaminate us with holiness." The church will yet become an open, compassionate, and forgiving religious community, according to Toscano's hope--one dedicated to the spiritual empowerment of each individual, the celebration of diversity, and the sanctity of dissent.

Paul James Toscano is an attorney who serves as a Standing Bankruptcy Trustee for the District of Utah. A former staff editor at the Ensign magazine, he is the author of Gospel Letters to a Mormon Missionary; Invisible Religion in the Public Schools; The Sanctity of Dissent; and Secularism, Neutrality, and the Supreme Court; co-author of Music and the Broken Word: Songs for Alternate Voices, and Strangers in Paradox: Explorations in Mormon Theology; and is a founder and past co-president of the Mormon Alliance.