Emmaus · a paidagogos for the Restoration
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Three paths · 134 stations mapped · one open

Walk a path

Three paths. Each is a line of short steps, ordered so that an idea arrives after the things it needs.

One station is open so far, the seventh on the first path. The rest of the map is drawn here anyway, with a count of the stations mapped behind each heading, so you can see where the road runs before any of it is written.

You do not have to start at the top.

Path 01 · The catechetical spine

Ground to Stand On

What everything else rests on, taken in the order it can be carried. Five stretches, 32 stations.

Stretch 01
Scripture and prophets
Eight steps from station 00 · one open
00
God speaks our language
01
Scripture, a library
02
How revelation arrives
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "Book of Mormon Translation"
03
The canon is open
04
Covenant, not creed
05
Three kinds of teaching
06
Teachings have careers
08
The expectation was the problem
Stretch 02
The Church and the culture
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Stretch 03
What binds, and what is free
In preparation · 5 stations mapped
Stretch 04
Grace, works, and the covenant path
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Stretch 05
What God is like, and what we are for
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "Becoming Like God" and "Mother in Heaven"
Path 02 · A ramp for each one

The Hard Questions

The questions people actually carry in at eleven at night. Where the Church has published its own essay, the ramp walks up to it and hands you over. Nine ramps, 53 stations.

Ramp 01
The First Vision, told four times
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "First Vision Accounts"
Ramp 02
Is the Book of Mormon history?
In preparation · 7 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies"
Ramp 03
The Book of Abraham and the papyri
In preparation · 7 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham"
Ramp 04
Plural marriage
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo"
Ramp 05
Race and the priesthood
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "Race and the Priesthood"
Ramp 06
Women, priesthood, and the temple
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "Joseph Smith's Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, and Women"
Ramp 07
Are we Christian?
In preparation · 5 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "Are Mormons Christian?"
Ramp 08
Genesis, geology, and the age of the earth
In preparation · 5 stations mapped
Ramp 09
The temple
In preparation · 5 stations mapped
Path 03 · Restoration history, period by period

The Story in Order

Two centuries walked once, front to back, so that no single fact has to arrive on its own. Eight periods, 49 stations.

Period 01 · before 1820
The world he was born into
In preparation · 5 stations mapped
Period 02 · 1820–1830
Visions, plates, and a church
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Period 03 · 1831–1838
Kirtland
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Period 04 · 1839–1846
Nauvoo
In preparation · 7 stations mapped
Period 05 · 1846–1869
The trek, and the Basin
In preparation · 7 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints" and "Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah"
Period 06 · 1869–1904
The Raid, and the Manifesto
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Lands at · Gospel Topics, "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage"
Period 07 · 1904–1978
The American century
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
Period 08 · 1978 to now
A global church
In preparation · 6 stations mapped
How the map is built

Every station names what it assumes and links back to whatever it assumes, so nothing arrives before the ground under it. A few stations are gated: they stay closed until the earlier ones are in hand, because delivered on their own they do more harm than good.

Where the Church has published its own essay on a subject, the station walks up to that essay and hands you over. Those essays already exist in the Church's main languages, which is why the map is hung on them. What Emmaus writes is the walk-up and the shelf behind it.

Take one station at a time. The rest will keep.