Patrick Q Mason

Patrick Q. Mason is the author of Restoration: God’s Call To The 21st Century. In Kyle’s notes, Mason’s central move is reframing the Restoration as forward-looking rather than primitivist: he argues Joseph Smith never spoke of a “restored church,” and recasts Zion as “for the world” rather than a tribal Saints-only community. Mason critiques the “Restoration-as-reprise” instinct (Primitivism) in favor of an ongoing, accelerating Restoration — citing Russell M. Nelson’s temple-building expansion and Jeffrey R. Holland’s claim that ending hunger, poverty, and injustice is “the work of the Restoration.” He draws on Brigham Young (“gather up every item of truth” regardless of source), Max Weber’s concept of disenchantment, and the church’s “allergy to talking about inequality” to argue for a faith that engages the modern world rather than retreats from it.

Context: Patrick Q. Mason is a historian of religion and the Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University, known for scholarship on Latter-day Saint thought, faith, and doubt.

Where this appears

• Restoration — God’s Call To The 21st Century — Mason as author, reframing the Restoration as forward-looking and Zion as “for the world”