Robert MacFarlane has written that “language does not just register experience, it produces it.” Our religious language in particular informs and shapes our understanding of God, our sense of self, and the way we make sense of our challenging path back to loving Heavenly Parents. Unfortunately, to an extent we may not realize, our religious vocabulary has been shaped by prior generations whose creeds, in Joseph Smith’s words, have “filled the world with confusion.”

“I make all things new,” proclaimed the Lord. Regrettably, many are still mired in the past, in ways we have not recognized. In this book, Fiona and Terryl Givens trace the roots of our religious vocabulary, explore how a flawed inheritance compounds the wounds and challenges of a life devoted to discipleship, and suggest ways of reformulating our language in more healthy ways — all in the hope that, as B. H. Roberts urged, we may all “cooperate in the works of the Spirit” to find “a truer expression” of a gospel restored.