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If we (meaning most of us on this site) have come to believe that the LDS Church probably isn’t God’s One True Church, we have a distasteful problem with the self-identification of the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators. These 15 men all claim to be Prophets with a capital “P,” meaning that they are the only 15 men on Earth who have God’s true authority and who speak directly for (and to) God. If they are not Prophets with a capital “P,” that leaves us with only two explanations for why these men claim to be Prophets: 1) All 15 of them are delusional. The have been led through some neurological process to believe that they are Prophets even though they aren’t and they believe that they posses extraordinary gifts they do not have. They ignore evidence indicating they are not Prophets.
2) All 15 of them are lying. They know they are not Prophets, seers, and revelators, but they say they are anyway, maybe because they don’t want to destroy the faith of literal believers.
If the Church really is what it claims to be, we have scenario 3:
3) The 15 Prophets of the Church are indeed Prophets, Seers, and Revelators. They can work miracles (including healing the sick by the laying on of hands,) cast out devils, walk on water, translate ancient records better than scholars can, foretell specific calamities or prevent specific calamities by issuing warnings, etc., but they do none of these things, and they don’t tell us why they don’t do these things even though they can do them. They also know why the Book of Abraham as translated by Joseph Smith doesn’t match the Egyptologists’ version, and they know why the priesthood ban on blacks existed, and the know why Joseph Smith practiced polygamy and polyandry, and they could prevent the apostasy of thousands of God’s children by simply tellings us the answers to these questions, but they don’t tell us for reasons we wouldn’t understand.
The Pope is in the same position: if the Catholic Church is not God’s One True Church, then the Pope is either delusional or lying. There really isn’t a middle ground here, because the 15 LDS Prophets claim to be God’s only true authorized Prophets. So what do you think? Or is there another explanation I am missing?
Good question!!! I’ve wondered that many times myself. I think they believe they are. There have been people through history who believe they were foreordained to take the non-Church leadership roles they have assumed. They later proved to be evil men, but nonetheless, their belief that God had chosen them to be leaders and change agents sustained them in their evil beliefs. NOw, I’m not saying our leaders are evil == not at all. Just saying that even in extreme situations, people have believed that they were appointed by God and acted on it. I think our leaders probably have had spiritual experiences which they have chosen to believe they are called and appointed as literal prophets and apostles.
This is an excellent question. I wonder if that is why we have been recently hearing about such things as “A prophet is a forth teller not a fore teller” and other things. The 15 are redefining their roles in to something they are more comfortable with.
InquiringMind wrote:
1) All 15 of them are delusional. The have been led through some neurological process to believe that they are Prophets even though they aren’t and they believe that they posses extraordinary gifts they do not have. They ignore evidence indicating they are not Prophets.2) All 15 of them are lying. They know they are not Prophets, seers, and revelators, but they say they are anyway, maybe because they don’t want to destroy the faith of literal believers.
There is at least one other possibility that I can think of. While some may be delusional or dishonest, I like to think it’s more likely that most have come to an understanding, forced upon them because of their many experiences in the church over the years, and the observed experiences of others, that being a Prophet with a “P” isn’t all it’s made out to be in Primary — that it’s a title and a position more than anything else, and that having a good heart and sincere desires to do the right thing qualifies them for the position that they have found themselves in. They only admit that occasionally (and very obscurely) because, as you point outQuote:they don’t want to destroy the faith of literal believers
and are unwilling to disabuse them of what they’ve been told all their lives — the potential cost it too high. I am willing to term that “deception” because I think it matches the definition pretty closely, but perhaps there’s a better word for it. This site is full of people, myself included, who do precisely the same thing. Only the scale of the deception is different.
InquiringMind wrote:If we (meaning most of us on this site) have come to believe that the LDS Church probably isn’t God’s One True Church, we have a distasteful problem with the self-identification of the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators.
These 15 men all claim to be Prophets with a capital “P,” meaning that they are the only 15 men on Earth who have God’s true authority and who speak directly for (and to) God.If they are not Prophets with a capital “P,” that leaves us with only two explanations for why these men claim to be Prophets: 1) All 15 of them are delusional. 2) All 15 of them are lying….So what do you think? Or is there another explanation I am missing? I don’t believe most of the LDS prophets and apostles are crazy or intentionally lying in a malicious way. For some of them the Church is all they have really known their entire lives and they are surrounded by other Mormons that expect them to go along with all this and continue to support it so how would they know any better? My guess is that most of them think the miraculous work of the restoration was already done by Joseph Smith and at this point the Church and its doctrines are already more or less the way they should be and if God talks to them then it will be in “whisperings of the still small voice” to confirm or re-emphasize some point already supported by specific scriptures so they don’t really expect to see or hear God directly.
Personally I think most of these Church presidents and apostles are basically just high-ranking TBMs that haven’t ever seriously questioned the Church to begin with and even if they have some doubts they probably rationalize that the problems don’t matter that much and if the Church was good enough for them then it is supposedly good enough for the next generations as well. In interviews, Gordon B. Hinckley was talking about how all the strict rules and routines of Mormonism were “wonderful” as if Church members can’t get enough of this and it will be for their own good and make them happier and healthier and I don’t see any reason to doubt that GBH believed it himself. I also don’t see any reasons to doubt that Thomas S. Monson, Dallin H. Oaks, Boyd K. Packer, Bednar, etc. believe most of what they say as well.
I’m curious. Do their patriarchal blessings talk about how they were among the noble and great one’s foreordained? It would be interesting if such a phrase was in their patriarchal blessings. I know one of the recent Prophets such as Howard W. Hunter or Gordon B. Hinckley had a part of his patriarchal blessing shared along those lines stated above. IMO most of them are administrators. They administer the gospel. I wouldn’t say they don’t heal the sick, since Neal A. Maxwell during his Leukemia days was blessing the sick daily. I just don’t know how many people were healed since that is a sacred thing. I feel that their are a few that may have a testimony of Jesus beyond what we have, but we can have as much a testimony of Jesus and be prophets lower case. I think it is a lot like President of the US-you do not want to be one of them. It is a stressful job and you have to give up a lot of your normalcy and privacy.
I have had some of the same thoughts of how they could translate the scriptures more, but then why would BYU need its dept. of ancient scripture? I heard general authorities talk to the Professors of Religion to gain insight at times. Joseph Smith was the only oracle that I know that set the trend for learning the bible from a Jewish Rabbi while in Kirtland or Nauvoo. The Rabbi had become Christian and taught at Oberlain College. The odd thing was that this did not line up with the JST in anyway. I think JS just wanted to learn from Joshua Seixes (I think his name was) Biblical Hebrew.
The point I’m making is you have dispensation heads and prophets who are administrators. Right now we have 15 administrators who hold the office of Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. It doesn’t mean they are as “powerful” as JS, or JC. Because their power is according to their faith. If JC and JS have more faith than they possess, obviously our modern day Prophets and Apostles have to be a wrung below on the Celestial ladder.
It’s also interesting to me that, since the time of Brigham Young, no Prophet that I know of (including the Apostles) has outright QUIT the the Church and written a shocking tell-all expose´about how the Mormon leadership fools millions of followers into believing that the First Pres. and Q12 are Prophets. Imagine what would happen if Pres. Eyring apostatized and wrote some book about the tactics that the First Pres. and Q12 use to persuade people to believe they are Prophets when these 15 men are in fact no more than a CEO and board of directors for one of the most successful financial scams of the last two centuries. It would be the best selling book of the decade! If the Church is really nothing more than a corporation that knowingly sells quack religious products and services to its members for the fee of tithing, it seems to me that at least one of the hundreds of men who have been among that elite 15 would have stepped forward and said, “I can no longer in good conscience tell people that I and the 14 men who lead this Church are Prophets. I cannot continue to live this lie. We cannot heal anyone. We cannot accurately predict any calamities. We can’t translate any ancient records. I don’t even know where my car keys are right now and I don’t expect God to tell me where they are. The truth must be told, and I will tell it, whatever the risk. We are not Prophets, and we possess none of the supernatural powers that primary children are taught that we have.” But this has never happened. No Prophet has ever stepped forward and exposed the Church as a fraud. But then again, no Pope has tried to expose the Catholic Church as a fraud. I don’t think that this is good evidence for the idea that the First Pres. and Q12 are Prophets with a capital “P.” But if I was ordained to that office, I would expect to be able to raise my hand in front of me and say to a kid in a wheelchair, “Take up thy wheelchair, and walk,” and I would fully expect him to do it, and when that didn’t happen, I’d start to ask some questions about what kinds of powers I was letting people believe I had.
I believe they are sincere. It is possible, strike that – ‘probable’ that their mortal understanding may diverge from ultimate eternal truths in some way. Delusional is a strong word, but when you get right down to it show me someone that is not delusional about something at some point in their life. I know it sounds strange but our “realities” are often an illusion, that doesn’t make them any less real to us. The question is important to ponder as a point of origin, don’t confuse the starting line with the finish line – or that any line is more important than the sights along the way. So when you get right down to it I don’t see the title of Prophet much different than disciple of Christ. We have teaching in the church that anyone can obtain the spirit of revelation and become a prophet. We are all supposed to be prophets. The big titles just don’t bother me, it says “he is doing his best to further the good work” that’s about it. Leaders hold positions and titles, I even believe in the possibility of inspiration/revelation, even if it’s not “pick up the bat-phone and dictate a revelation.”
I think the entire premise of the post is off, frankly. I’m not going to nit-pick line-by-line, but I am certain they believe they are prophets, seers and revelators – but I believe they define those terms radically different than you do in the post. That means I believe you are arguing a position that is flawed fundamentally in talking about them. The best example is this:
Quote:we have a distasteful problem with the self-identification of the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators. These 15 men all claim to be Prophets with a capital “P,” meaning that they are the only 15 men on Earth who have God’s true authority and who speak directly for (and to) God.
Two things:
1) I don’t believe for a second that either sentence above is accurate – and I don’t believe there is a single apostle who believes them as worded. Iow, I don’t believe they self-identify in the way you say they do.
2) You capitalized all three titles and emphasized repeatedly the capitalization. I think that’s a false dichotomy, and it serves as the foundation of your argument. I won’t go line-by-line, when my entire issue with the conclusions rests on a premise I don’t believe is valid in the first place – either with regard to how I see them or to how I believe they see themselves.
The capitalization was to differentiate prophets with a small “p,” who are people like Mohammed, Buddah, Native American medicine men, tribal elders, and other shaman types and people who channel spiritual energy for the good of mankind from the LDS notion of a Prophet, who is a person that has exclusive divine authority and who must be obeyed by anyone who wants exaltation. Old-Timer wrote:…I am certain they believe they are prophets, seers and revelators – but I believe they define those terms radically different than you do in the post.
I’m open to this, and that may have some answers. It’s possible that they don’t believe that they are Prophets in the way that the seminary and Sunday school manuals teach that they are Prophets or that popular Mormon culture believes they are Prophets. It’s possible that they don’t believe that they can do the things that the people in the Bible and the Book of Mormon did. They may not believe that they possess any special supernatural powers at all.
I suppose that a person could make the case that no recent Prophet has claimed to have special supernatural powers. President Monson hasn’t claimed to be able to heal people and hasn’t claimed to be able to foretell calamities. President Hinckley never claimed to have worked any miracles at all. No recent prophet has used the phrase “Thus saith the Lord.” None of them have claimed that they can translate ancient records. The only thing that recent prophets have claimed to be able to do is to have the divine authority to perform ordinances, the authority to administer the Church’s everyday business, and the authority to tell people what they need to do to be saved. Any other claims about what the Prophets can do come from individuals other than the Prophets.
So if the Prophets don’t define their Prophethood in the way that generally accepted Mormonism and Mormon culture does, then how do they define it?
InquiringMind wrote:The capitalization was to differentiate prophets with a small “p,” who are people like Mohammed, Buddah, Native American medicine men, tribal elders, and other shaman types and people who channel spiritual energy for the good of mankind from the LDS notion of a Prophet, who is a person that has exclusive divine authority and who must be obeyed by anyone who wants exaltation.
Yes. I agree with Inquiring Mind on this. Bruce R McConkine in Mormon Doctrine distinguished between prophet large “P” and prophet small “p”. I do think Ray, the question is a good one — I’ve wondered how the Q12 and FP view themselves given the actual limitations they know exist on their relationship with God, and oft-times huge expectations of the members that they are supernatural, have seen Christ, etcetera. The fact that we are told in various conference talks not to ask about their special witness further throws more fuel into the question.
InquiringMind wrote:1) All 15 of them are delusional.
No, unless you are referring to what Orson said where we all see through a glass darkly which makes all our points of view delusional…but I sense the connotation of your post is not suggesting such, but a stronger delusion.
I reject this. Over all the years there have been prophets, apostles, and seers…you are suggesting they are stupid or mentally limited or have been duped and not one of them has “figured out” what we see on this puny website? Nah…not a chance. Study their lives, study their words. That premise cannot hold up to true information on who these wise men are.
InquiringMind wrote:2) All 15 of them are lying.
nope. I can’t believe this for a second. A conspiracy? Someone would have broken ranks by now. They have devoted their life to this cause. There is no intentional deception in their words or actions. My testimony is they are wise men, and millions benefit from following their guidance. The fruit is (mostly) good. The church has grown and sustained itself for far too long. Evidence does not support lying or deception in my mind.
InquiringMind wrote:3) The 15 Prophets of the Church are indeed Prophets, Seers, and Revelators. They can work miracles (including healing the sick by the laying on of hands,) cast out devils, walk on water, translate ancient records better than scholars can, foretell specific calamities or prevent specific calamities by issuing warnings, etc., but they do none of these things,
I think it is possible they can. But show me a prophet in history who has done all these things. Did every prophet need to go part the Red Sea to prove they were the next real prophet? That would be silly. God has never worked that way. I think they can do miracles, if it be God’s will. I think they have done miracles, perhaps some that dont impress me. The danger I see with this whole line of thinking as criteria for Gods work being done is it is sign seeking. We are warned in the scriptures about this, and I don’t feel it benefits me much from my journey.
InquiringMind wrote:The Pope is in the same position: if the Catholic Church is not God’s One True Church, then the Pope is either delusional or lying. There really isn’t a middle ground here, because the 15 LDS Prophets claim to be God’s only true authorized Prophets. So what do you think? Or is there another explanation I am missing?
yes, I think you are missing the major point. There is middle ground. It is there to be found if you search for it.We have talked for years on this site that dichotomous thinking is just not reality. It is too limiting to have only two colors, black and white, and force the spectrum into those two categories and leave out all the colors that reflect from the prism in my avatar.
I have a testimony the Q12 and FP are sincere and righteous men. Way more so than I am, and my family has been blessed by having their words in our home. If I did not believe this, I would not stay.
Quote:We have talked for years on this site that dichotomous thinking is just not reality. It is too limiting to have only two colors, black and white, and force the spectrum into those two categories and leave out all the colors that reflect from the prism in my avatar.
I 100% agree with Heber13 on this. Why are we strictly defining what a prophet can be? Why do we get to establish the criteria and then judge whether the men in question meet those criteria? A prophet is God’s representative on earth and the means by which he accomplishes that representation may vary from person to person and from time to time. What do those men in the Q12 and FP think and what have they experienced? I’ve no idea but I do believe that they ALL want to do good. These aren’t supervillains but flawed men (probably less flawed than most) trying to do their best in circumstances that quite unknown to the rest of us.
I think the post title question is a good question, but I think the premise of the actual post is way off-base. In summary, I agree with those who have said that it rests on a classic, black-and-white perspective – but I also believe it rests on incorrect definitions of the terms in question. It also tends to eliminate the vast majority of prophets in our canonized scriptures as “real” prophets. I don’t have time right now to go into detail, and I probably won’t until tonight, but I’ll pull out my red marker and give more detail when I can.
Old-Timer wrote:It also tends to eliminate the vast majority of prophets in our canonized scriptures as “real” prophets.
Personally, I’m okay with that. Actually, more than okay. I think that coming to the realization that themythosof scripture is just that — an idealization that was never intended to be taken as literal fact, but instead to get across a principle of spiritual value. So maybe the question to ask is wasthere ever such a thing as a Prophet with a “P”, and if not and we have to move beyond that, what are the implications for our own prophethood.
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