I like the way this Community of Christ member puts it. He put together The Book of Mormon: Plain and Precious Truths, which is a contemporary English version of The Book of Mormon. He offers the book free as a PDF on his site and he states the following on his webpage (emphasis added):
There are 4 chief ways to interpret scripture of any kind: literal/historical, tropological (figurative that stresses morality), allegorical (delivers broader messages about real-world issues), and anagogical (higher spiritual meaning; alludes to the Divine/afterlife). Once people discover that The Book of Mormon is a pseudepigrapha and it’s stories are not literally true, many tend to have very little interest in the other possible interpretations. People have told me that this book represents all the negative teachings and practices of the church that I grew up in and any moral value in the book can be found elsewhere and without the baggage.
I absolutely see why some people would want to distance themselves from that church and thus The Book of Mormon. However, to me, this book transcends that church. The Book of Mormon is something that represents my heritage’s and my ancestors’ spiritual journey. My parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, et cetera, all looked into this book to find themselves and to find the Divine. I feel a connection to them when I attempt to also find myself and the Divine through this text. These are real and valuable spiritual experiences to me, and I am having them in a way that feels familiar and comfortable to me.
Instead of abandoning the Book of Mormon altogether, I am choosing to breathe new life into it and interpret it in new ways. I see no reason why I can’t accept The Book of Mormon as a pseudepigraphical literary work from the 1820’s. Doing so allows me to explore scripture to find the Divine through an allegorical, tropological, and/or anagogical lens, without needing it to double as a history book; it allows me to connect to my ancestors who also treasured it; It allows me to explore what I believe is useful, truthful, and moral today in a familiar and comfortable way. It is refreshing to be able to have a relationship with my heritage, ancestors, and traditions on my own terms.
(Source )
This is similar to how I currently feel about being “LDS” as a Heritage Mormon, i.e. someone who respects my LDS heritage. Although, I have not chosen the same course as this author, like relabeling the Godhead as the Divine in order to avoid using masculine pronouns for God, and I have not joined the Community of Christ. I also think that while Joseph Smith certainly took part in creating the Book of Mormon himself (as many LDS scholars allow today to some degree), I am open minded to Blake Ostler's Expansion Theory and his response to critics of the theory. But I did find it useful to re-read the Book of Mormon through my own lens of interpretation, which I did in my document here: An Emergent Mormon Re-reads the Book of Mormon from an Emergent Perspective & Realizes it's Philosophical and Artistic Value
