- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Greg Prince has said (I think quoting someone else) that there is no doctrine in the LDS Church that has not evolved over time. When you dig in, you can see our very idea of the Godhead has evolved. The “fullness of the gospel” is no different. The BOM represents the fullness of the gospel at that time. There is a trinitarian view of God, heaven and hell and a focus on faith, repentance and baptism. No temple, no kingdoms, etc. Kirtland represented a radical shift in thinking, with the Lectures on Faith and the degrees of glory. D&C 76 does not mention temple theology or sealings. In the Lectures on Faith, we have a teaching that God the Father and Jesus are the Godhead and the Holy Ghost is their unity of thought. In Nauvoo we have a huge shift in theology with the temple endowment, plural marriage more developed and a pantheon of Gods and progress to Godhood. In Modern Mormonism, we have tried to mesh these all together and make them work in tandem as one seamless fullness of the gospel. In the early 1900s we shifted our theology from a polygamy-centered theology to a much more streamlined theology that became more palatable to mainstream Christianity. We have continued on this trajectory, downplaying the “weird” elements of our theology that don’t fit, like becoming Gods, having our own planet, etc. I think those elements are what make Mormonism interesting. However, I love the simplicity of focusing on the fundamentals of following the example of Jesus and practicing a Christian life of service, personal growth and grace in a Mormon community.
I agree Felix. SD, I think that the BoM was envisioned and marketed as the “rest of the story” that the bible either left out or had been removed from the bible. The “fulness” of the gospel is in reference and contrast to the bible being incomplete. Thus the bible and the BoM together are all you will ever need. It certainly has some appeal.
However, remember the Dunkers!
Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography, quoting from the Anabaptist Dunkers wrote:“When we were first drawn together as a society,” says he, “it had pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines, which we once esteemed truths, were errors; and that others, which we had esteemed errors, were real truths. From time to time He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge;”
If we sell the BoM as the fulness then what happens when we receive further light? Should we reject it because it is not found in the Bible or BoM? There are some Christian religions that reject anything not found in the Bible. Should that be our course?
Given these two realities of the church evolving further than what was envisioned in the BoM AND that it was considered the fulness of the gospel that some creative thinking was in order.
SilentDawning wrote:
On reviewing this, I can’t see the BoM containing the fulness of the gospel without some reliance on word play or mental gymnastics.
Yes, I believe some creative interpretation was used to try to correlate the two seemingly contradictory ideas (not unlike what we humans do in many other circumstances).
These are good points. But I guess we should stop preaching the BOM is the fullness of the gospel if greater fulness has been revealed to us via prophets. Roy wrote:
Are we as a church capable of grappling with statements and ideas that the church held to in the past that are wrong (or could have been right for their time and place but are no longer accurate)?
I think not. We like to think that everything is fixed in stone when shared, spoken in conference, or sometimes, even heard at church. It’s the follow-up conclusion to the idea that the church is the only true church on the earth. People expect consistency, an absence of error, and absolute statements to be true in all situations.
SilentDawning wrote:
These are good points. But I guess we should stop preaching the BOM is the fullness of the gospel if greater fulness has been revealed to us via prophets.
Not that the temple can’t change because there have been significant changes over my nearly 30 years of temple experience, but it is part of the temple ceremony that the BoM (and Bible) contain the fullness of the Gospel. That would need to change.
It all depends on how one defines “the Gospel”. I like the simple Biblical definition, which is, essentially, that Jesus frees otherwise captive people. The Book of Mormon certainly contains that. So does the New Testament – but interpretations of that over time have obscured it (in the Bible, and, ironically, in the Book of Mormon, as well). I see JS as believing the Book of Mormon restored it, with faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost as the process of captive liberation.
I am fine with that view. I just believe the discussion is semantics, with different views influenced by different interpretations of the phrase.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.